BL  815 

.F8 

C9 

Cumont 

,  Franz 

Valery 

Marie, 

1868- 

1947 

After 

life 

in 

Roman 

paganism 

AFTER  LIFE   IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 


YALE  UNIVERSITY 

MRS.   HEPSA  ELY  SILLIMAN 

MEMORIAL  LECTURES 


SILLIMAN  MEMORIAL  LECTURES 

PUBLISHED  BY  YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

ELECTEICITY  AND  MATTER.  By  Joseph  John  Thomson,  D.Sc,  LL.D., 
Ph.D.,  F.R.S.,  Fellow  of  Trinity  College  and  Cavendish  Professor  of  Ex- 
perimental Physics,  Cambridge  University.  (Fourth  printing.) 

THE  INTEGRATIVE  ACTION  OF  THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEM.  By 
Charles  S.  Sherrington,  D.Sc,  M.D.,  Hon.  LL.D.  Tor.,  F.R.S.,  Holt 
Professor  of  Physiology,  University  of  Liverpool.  (Sixth  printing.) 

RADIOACTIVE  TRANSFORMATIONS.  By  Ernest  Rutherford,  D.Sc, 
LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Macdonald  Professor  of  Physics,  McGill  University. 
(Second  printing.) 

EXPERIMENTAL  AND  THEORETICAL  APPLICATIONS  OF  THER- 
MODYNAMICS TO  CHEMISTRY.  By  Dr.  Walter  Nernst,  Professor 
and  Director  of  the  Institute  of  Physical  Chemistry  in  the  University  of 
Berlin. 

PROBLEMS  OF  GENETICS.  By  William  Bateson,  M.A.,  F.R.S.,  Director 
of  the  John  Innes  Horticultural  Institution,  Merton  Parle,  Surrey,  Eng- 
land. (Second  printing.) 

STELLAR  MOTIONS.  With  Special  Reference  to  Motions  Determined  by 
Means  of  the  Spectrograph.  By  William  Wallace  Campbell,  Sc.D., 
LL.D.,  Director  of  the  Dick  Observatory,  University  of  California.  (Second 
printing.) 

THEORIES  OF  SOLUTIONS.  By  Svante  Arrhenius,  Ph.D.,  Sc.D.,  M.D., 
Director  of  the  Physico-Chemical  Department  of  the  Nobel  Institute, 
Stockholm,  Sweden.  (Third  printing.) 

IRRITABILITY.  A  Physiological  Analysis  of  the  General  Effect  of  Stimuli 
in  Living  Substances.  By  Max  Verworn,  M.D.,  Ph.D.,  Professor  at  Bonn 
Physiological  Institute.  (Second  printing.) 

PROBLEMS  OF  AMERICAN  GEOLOGY.  By  William  North  Rice, 
Frank  D.  Adams,  Arthur  P.  Coleman,  Charles  D.  Walcott,  Walde- 
mar  Lindgren,  Frederick  Leslie  Ransome,  and  William  D.  Matthew. 
(Second  printing.) 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  VOLCANISM.  By  Joseph  Paxson  Iddings,  Ph.B., 
Sc.D.  (Second  printing.) 

ORGANISM  AND  ENVIRONMENT  AS  ILLUSTRATED  BY  THE 
PHYSIOLOGY  OF  BREATHING.  By  John  Scott  Haldane,  M.D., 
LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Fellow  of  New  College,  Oxford  University.  (Second  print- 
ing.) 

A  CENTURY  OF  SCIENCE  IN  AMERICA.  With  Special  Reference  to  the 
American  Journal  of  Science  1818-1918.  By  Edward  Salisbury  Dana, 
Charles  Schuchert,  Herbert  E.  Gregory,  Joseph  Barrell,  George 
Otis  Smith,  Richard  Swann  Lull,  Louis  V.  Pirsson,  William  E.  Ford, 
R.  B.  Sosman,  Horace  L.  Wells,  Harry  W.  Foote,  Leigh  Page,  Wes- 
ley R.  Coe,  and  George  L.  Goodale. 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  MODERN  MEDICINE.  By  Sir  William  Osler, 
Bart.,  M.D.,  F.R.S.   (Second  printing.) 

RESPIRATION.  By  J.  S.  Haldane,  M.D.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S.,  Fellow  of  New 
College,  Oxford,  Honorary  Professor,  Birmingham  University. 

AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM.  By  Franz  Cumont. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN 
ROMAN  PAGANISM 

LECTURES  DELIVERED  AT  YALE  UNIVERSITY 
ON  THE  SILLIMAN  FOUNDATION 

BY 
FRANZ   CUMONT 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON  •  HUMPHREY  MILFORD  •  OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

MDCCCCXXII 


COPYEIGHT,   1922,  BY 
YALE   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 


TO  MY  FRIEND 
GEORGE  LINCOLN  HENDRICKSON 

1888-1922 


THE  SILLIMAN  FOUNDATION 

In  the  year  1883  a  legacy  of  eighty  thousand  dollars 
was  left  to  the  President  and  Fellows  of  Yale  College  in 
the  city  of  New  Haven,  to  be  held  in  trust,  as  a  gift  from 
her  children,  in  memory  of  their  beloved  and  honored 
mother,  Mrs.  Hepsa  Ely  Silliman. 

On  this  foundation  Yale  College  was  requested  and 
directed  to  establish  an  annual  course  of  lectures  de- 
signed to  illustrate  the  presence  and  providence,  the  wis- 
dom and  goodness  of  God,  as  manifested  in  the  natural 
and  moral  world.  These  were  to  be  designated  as  the  Mrs. 
Hepsa  Ely  Silliman  Memorial  Lectures.  It  was  the  belief 
of  the  testator  that  any  orderly  presentation  of  the  facts 
of  nature  or  history  contributed  to  the  end  of  this  foun- 
dation more  effectively  than  any  attempt  to  emphasize 
the  elements  of  doctrine  or  of  creed;  and  he  therefore 
provided  that  lectures  on  dogmatic  or  polemical  theology 
should  be  excluded  from  the  scope  of  this  foundation,  and 
that  the  subjects  should  be  selected,  rather,  from  the 
domains  of  natural  science  and  history,  giving  special 
prominence  to  astronomy,  chemistry,  geology,  and 
anatomy. 

It  was  further  directed  that  each  annual  course  should 
be  made  the  basis  of  a  volume  to  form  part  of  a  series 
constituting  a  memorial  to  Mrs.  Silliman.  The  memorial 
fund  came  into  the  possession  of  the  Corporation  of  Yale 
University  in  the  year  1901 ;  and  the  present  volume  con- 
stitutes the  sixteenth  of  the  series  of  memorial  lectures. 


PREFACE 

AT  the  invitation  of  the  President  of  Yale  Univer- 
/\  sity  and  of  Professor  Eussell  H.  Chittenden, 
,/~m,  chairman  of  the  committee  in  charge  of  the  Silli- 
man  Foundation,  the  lectures  which  are  here  presented 
to  a  wider  public  were  delivered  in  New  Haven  during 
the  month  of  March  of  the  year  1921.  It  was  the  wish 
of  the  committee  that  I  should  speak  upon  some  subject 
from  the  history  of  religion.  I  chose  therefore  as  my 
theme  a  matter  which  had  occupied  my  attention  for 
many  years,  viz.,  the  ideas  current  in  Eoman  paganism 
concerning  the  lot  of  the  soul  after  death.  The  argument 
has  been  treated  more  than  once  by  distinguished  scholars 
and  notably — to  mention  only  an  English  book — by  Mrs. 
Arthur  Strong  in  her  recent  work  "  Apotheosis  and 
After  Life, ' '  a  study  characterised  by  penetrating  inter- 
pretation, especially  of  archaeological  monuments.  But 
we  do  not  yet  possess  for  the  Roman  imperial  epoch  a 
counterpart  to  Rohde's  classical  volume,  "Psyche,"  for 
the  earlier  Greek  period,  that  is,  a  work  in  which  the 
whole  evolution  of  Roman  belief  and  speculation  regard- 
ing a  future  life  is  set  forth.  These  lectures  cannot  claim 
to  fill  this  gap.  They  may  however  be  looked  upon  as  a 
sketch  of  the  desired  investigation,  in  which,  though 
without  the  detailed  citation  of  supporting  evidence,  an 
attempt  at  least  has  been  made  to  trace  the  broad  outlines 
of  the  subject  in  all  its  magnitude. 

The  lectures  are  printed  in  the  form  in  which  they 
were  delivered.  The  necessity  of  making  each  one  intel- 
ligible to  an  audience  which  was  not  always  the  same,  has 
made  inevitable  some  repetitions.  Cross  references  have 
been  added,  where  the  same  topics  are  treated  in  different 


xii  PREFACE 

connections.  However,  in  a  book  intended  primarily  for 
the  general  reader,  the  scholarly  apparatus  has  been 
reduced  to  a  minimum  and  as  a  rule  indicates  only  the 
source  of  passages  quoted  in  the  text. 

My  acknowledgment  is  due  to  Miss  Helen  Douglas 
Irvine,  who  with  skill  and  intelligent  understanding  of  the 
subject  translated  into  English  the  French  text  of  these 
lectures.  I  wish  also  to  express  my  gratitude  to  my 
friends,  Professor  George  Lincoln  Hendrickson,  who  took 
upon  himself  the  tedious  task  of  reading  the  manuscript 
and  the  proofs  of  this  book  and  to  whom  I  am  indebted 
for  many  valuable  suggestions  both  in  matter  and  in 
form,  and  Professor  Grant  Showerman,  who  obligingly 
consented  to  revise  the  last  chapters  before  they  were 
printed. 

Rome,  September,  1922. 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE.  P.  xi. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION.  General  view  of  the  subject, 
1 — The  ancient  beliefs :  after  life  in  the  tomb,  3 — in  the  nether 
world,  4 — Philosophical  criticism,  5 — Academic  and  Peripa- 
tetic schools,  6 — Epicureans,  7 — Stoics,  12 — Scepticism  at  the 
end  of  the  Republic,  16 — Earthly  immortality,  19 — Rebirth 
of  Pythagorism,  20— Its  teaching,  24— Posidonius,  27— Cicero, 
31 — Diffusion  of  the  mysteries,  33 — Hermetic  writings  and 
Chaldean  oracles,  38— Plutarch,  39— The  second  and  third 
centuries,  39 — Neo-Platonism,  40 — Conclusion,  43. 

I.  AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB.  Survival  of  primitive  beliefs, 
44— After  life  of  the  body,  45— The  tomb  "eternal  house,"  48 
— Food  for  the  dead,  50 — Sacrifices,  51 — Funeral  meals,  52 — 
Gardens,  56 — Connection  of  the  dead  with  the  living,  57 — The 
aerial  souls,  59 — Beneficent,  60 — or  Malevolent,  63 — Souls  of 
the  unburied,  64 — Become  ghosts,  67. 

II.  THE  NETHER  WORLD.  Belief  in  the  nether  world,  70— 
After  life  prolongation  of  earthly  life,  72 — Greek  doctrines  in- 
troduced into  Italy,  73 — Philosophical  criticism,  76 — Hades 
transported  to  this  life,  78 — Distinction  of  "soul"  and  shade, 
79 — Hades  is  the  lower  hemisphere,  79 — Hades  in  the  air,  81 — 
Scepticism,  83 — Persistence  of  old  tradition  in  literature  and 
art,  84 — Ancient  beliefs  maintained  in  the  people,  86 — Neo- 
Platonists,  87 — Persian  dualism,  89. 

III.  CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY.  Widespread  beliefs  that 
souls  rise  to  the  stars,  91 — Unknown  in  ancient  Greece,  94 — 
Pythagorism,  95 — Lunar  immortality,  96 — Solar  immortality, 
100— Combination  of  both,  102— Stellar  immortality,  103— 
Combined  with  the  other  doctrines :  three  stages,  106 — Passage 
through  the  planetary  spheres,  107 — Souls  rise  above  the  stars, 
108. 


xiv  CONTENTS 

IV.  THE  "WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY.  Ancient  conception 
of  immortality,  110 — Eminent  men  gods  on  earth,  111 — Im- 
mortality of  the  few,  114 — Mysteries  claim  to  procure  ' '  deifica- 
tion," 116— Lustrations,  118— Unctions,  119— Ritual  banquets, 
120— The  gnosis,  121 — Identification  with  a  particular  god, 
122 — Illumination  by  the  astral  divinities,  123 — Philosophy 
also  leads  to  union  with  God,  124. 

V.  UNTIMELY  DEATH.  Children  not  admitted  to  the  Elysian 
Fields,  128 — Those  who  die  violent  deaths,  129 — Influence  of 
astrology,  131 — Pythagorism,  132 — Magic,  134 — Philosophical 
reaction,  136 — Children  initiated,  138 — Their  souls  rise  to 
heaven,  139 — Different  categories  of  biothanati,  141 — Soldiers 
slain  in  battle,  142 — Suicides,  143 — Executed  criminals,  145 — 
Persistence  of  ancient  beliefs,  146. 

VI.  THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND.  Journey  to  the 
nether  world,  148 — The  Pythagorean  Y,  150 — The  two  roads, 
152 — How  the  dead  reach  heaven,  153 — On  foot,  by  means  of  a 
ladder,  153 — In  a  boat,  154 —  On  horseback,  155 — In  a  chariot, 
156 — As  a  bird,  157 — Carried  by  an  eagle,  158 — Solar  attrac- 
tion, 160 — Physical  theory,  161 — The  air  peopled  with  demons, 
162 — The  gates  of  the  planetary  spheres,  162 — Guide  of  the 
souls,  163 — Physical  character  of  the  dead,  164 — The  shade 
and  the  soul,  167 — Distinction  of  soul  and  reason,  168 — Neo- 
Platonic  "vehicle,"  169. 

VII.  THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  AND  METEMPSYCHO- 
SIS. Origin  in  Homer,  170 — Orphic  theology,  171 — Resem- 
blance to  penal  law,  172 — Apocryphal  gospel  of  Peter,  173 — 
Oriental  influence,  174 — Fire  of  hell,  175 — Metempsychosis, 
its  animistic  basis,  177 — Origin  in  Greece,  177 — Souls  passing 
continuously  through  different  kinds  of  beings,  179 — Reincar- 
nation a  punishment,  180 — "Palingenesis"  or  uncontinuous 
reincarnation,  182 — Transmigration  from  man  to  man,  183 — 
Purification  of  the  soul  in  the  air,  184 — by  water  and  fire,  185 
— Purgatory  in  the  atmosphere,  186 — The  purified  spirit  re- 
mains in  heaven,  187. 

VIII.  THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED.  Rest  in  the  tomb, 
190 — in  the  nether  world,  193 — in  the  light  of  heaven,  193 — 
Persistence  of  these  ideas  among  the  Christians,  196 — Repast 
of  the  dead,  199 — Repast  in  the  nether  world,  201 — The  funeral 


CONTENTS  xv 

banquet  and  the  sacred  meal  of  the  mysteries,  203 — Banquet 
in  heaven,  205 — Persistence  in  Christianity,  206 — The  sight  of 
the  god,  207 — In  the  astral  cults,  208 — Communion  of  man  with 
the  stars,  209 — Immortality  a  contemplation  of  the  astral  gods, 
210 — Astral  mysticism,  211 — Ecstasy  of  the  Neo-Platonists,  212 
— Last  conception  of  eternal  bliss,  213. 

INDEX.  P.  215. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION 

THE  idea  of  death  has  perhaps  never  been  more  present  to 
humanity  than  during  the  years  through  which  we  have 
just  passed.  It  has  been  the  daily  companion  of  millions 
of  men  engaged  in  a  murderous  conflict ;  it  has  haunted  the  even 
larger  number  who  have  trembled  for  the  lives  of  their  nearest  and 
dearest;  it  is  still  constantly  in  the  thoughts  of  the  many  who 
nurse  regret  for  those  they  loved.  And  doubtless  also,  the  faith 
or  the  hope  has  never  more  imposed  itself,  even  on  the  unbeliev- 
ing, that  these  countless  multitudes,  filled  with  moral  force  and 
generous  passion,  who  have  entered  eternity,  have  not  wholly 
perished,  that  the  ardour  which  animated  them  was  not  extin- 
guished when  their  limbs  grew  cold,  that  the  spirit  which  im- 
pelled them  to  self-sacrifice  was  not  dissipated  with  the  atoms 
which  formed  their  bodies. 

These  feelings  were  known  to  the  ancients  also,  who  gave  to  this 
very  conviction  the  form  suggested  by  their  religion.  Pericles1 
in  his  funeral  eulogy  of  the  warriors  who  fell  at  the  siege  of 
Samos  declared  that  they  who  die  for  their  country  become  like 
the  immortal  gods,  and  that,  invisible  like  them,  they  still  scatter 
their  benefits  on  us.  The  ideas  on  immortality  held  in  antiquity 
are  often  thus  at  once  far  from  and  near  to  our  own — near  be- 
cause they  correspond  to  aspirations  which  are  not  antique  or 
modern,  but  human,  far  because  the  Olympians  now  have  fallen 
into  the  deep  gulf  where  lie  dethroned  deities.  These  ideas  become 
more  and  more  like  the  conceptions  familiar  to  us  as  gradually 
their  time  grows  later,  and  those  generally  admitted  at  the  end  of 
paganism  are  analogous  to  the  doctrines  accepted  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages. 

I  flatter  myself,  therefore,  that  when  I  speak  to  you  of  the 
beliefs  in  a  future  life  held  in  Roman  times  I  have  chosen  a 
subject  which  is  not  very  remote  from  us  nor  such  as  has  no 
relation  to  our  present  thought  or  is  capable  of  interesting  only 
the  learned. 

i  Plut.,  Pericl,  8. 


2  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

We  can  here  trace  only  the  outlines  of  this  vast  subject.  I  am 
aware  that  it  is  always  imprudent  to  hazard  moral  generalisa- 
tions :  they  are  always  wrong  somewhere.  Above  all,  it  is  perilous 
to  attempt  to  determine  with  a  few  words  the  infinite  variety 
of  individual  creeds,  for  nothing  escapes  historical  observation 
more  easily  than  the  intimate  convictions  of  men,  which  they 
often  hide  even  from  those  near  them.  In  periods  of  scepticism 
pious  souls  cling  to  old  beliefs ;  the  conservative  crowd  remains 
faithful  to  ancestral  traditions.  When  religion  is  resuming  its 
empire,  rationalistic  minds  resist  the  contagion  of  faith.  It  is 
especially  difficult  to  ascertain  up  to  what  point  ideas  adopted 
by  intellectual  circles  succeeded  in  penetrating  the  deep  masses 
of  the  people.  The  epitaphs  which  have  been  preserved  give  us 
too  scanty  and  too  sparse  evidence  in  this  particular.  Besides,  in 
paganism  a  dogma  does  not  necessarily  exclude  its  opposite 
dogma:  the  two  sometimes  persist  side  by  side  in  one  mind  as 
different  possibilities,  each  of  which  is  authorised  by  a  respect- 
able tradition.  You  will  therefore  make  the  necessary  reserva- 
tions to  such  of  my  statements  as  are  too  absolute.  I  shall  be  able 
to  point  out  here  only  the  great  spiritual  currents  which  succes- 
sively brought  to  Rome  new  ideas  as  to  the  Beyond,  and  to 
sketch  the  evolution  undergone  by  the  doctrines  as  to  the  lot  and 
the  abode  of  souls.  You  will  not  expect  me  to  be  precise  as  to  the 
number  of  the  partisans  of  each  of  these  doctrines  in  the  various 
periods. 

At  least  we  can  distinguish  the  principal  phases  of  the  reli- 
gious movement  which  caused  imperial  society  to  pass  from 
incredulity  to  certain  forms  of  belief  in  immortality,  forms  at 
first  somewhat  crude  but  afterwards  loftier,  and  we  can  see 
where  this  movement  led.  The  change  was  a  capital  one  and 
transformed  for  the  ancients  the  whole  conception  of  life.  The 
axis  about  which  morality  revolved  had  to  be  shifted  when  ethics 
no  longer  sought,  as  in  earlier  Greek  philosophy,  to  realise  the 
sovereign  good  on  this  earth  but  looked  for  it  after  death.  Thence- 
forth the  activity  of  man  aimed  less  at  tangible  realities,  ensuring 
well-being  to  the  family  or  the  city  or  the  state,  and  more  at 
attaining  to  the  fulfilment  of  ideal  hopes  in  a  supernatural  world. 
Our  sojourn  here  below  was  conceived  as  a  preparation  for 
another  existence,  as  a  transitory  trial  which  was  to  result  in 
infinite  felicity  or  suffering.  Thus  the  table  of  ethical  values  was 
turned  upside  down. 

"All  our  actions  and  all  our  thoughts,"  says  Pascal,  "must 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  3 

follow  so  different  a  course  if  there  are  eternal  possessions  for 
which  we  may  hope  than  if  there  are  not,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  take  any  directed  and  well-judged  step  except  by  regulating 
it  in  view  of  this  point  which  ought  to  be  our  ultimate  goal. '  '2 

We  will  attempt  first  to  sketch  in  a  general  introduction  the 
historical  transformation  which  belief  in  the  future  life  under- 
went between  the  Republican  period  and  the  fall  of  paganism. 
Then,  in  three  lectures,  we  will  examine  more  closely  the  various 
conceptions  of  the  abode  of  the  dead  held  under  the  Roman  Em- 
pire, study  in  three  others  the  conditions  or  the  means  which 
enable  men  to  attain  to  immortality  and  in  the  last  two  set  forth 
the  lot  of  souls  in  the  Beyond. 


The  cinerary  vases  of  the  prehistoric  period  are  often  modelled 
in  the  shape  of  huts :  throughout,  funeral  sculpture  follows  the 
tradition  that  the  tomb  should  reproduce  the  dwelling,  and  until 
the  end  of  antiquity  it  was  designated,  in  the  West  as  in  the  East, 
as  the  ' '  eternal  house ' '  of  him  who  rested  in  it. 

Thus  a  conception  of  the  tomb  which  goes  back  to  the  remotest 
ages  and  persists  through  the  centuries  regards  it  as  ''the  last 
dwelling ' '  of  those  who  have  left  us ;  and  this  expression  has  not 
yet  gone  out  of  use.  It  was  believed  that  a  dead  man  continued 
to  live,  in  the  narrow  space  granted  him,  a  life  which  was  grop- 
ing, obscure,  precarious,  yet  like  that  he  led  on  earth.  Subject  to 
the  same  needs,  obliged  to  eat  and  to  drink,  he  expected  those 
who  had  been  nearest  to  him  to  appease  his  hunger  and  thirst. 
The  utensils  he  had  used,  the  things  he  had  cared  for,  were  often 
deposited  beside  him  so  that  he  might  pursue  the  occupations  and 
enjoy  the  amusements  which  he  had  forsaken  in  the  world.  If  he 
were  satisfied  he  would  stay  quietly  in  the  furnished  house  pro- 
vided for  him  and  would  not  seek  to  avenge  himself  on  those 
whose  neglect  had  caused  him  suffering.  Funeral  rites  were  origi- 
nally inspired  rather  by  fear  than  by  love.  They  were  precautions 
taken  against  the  spirit  of  the  dead  rather  than  pious  care 
bestowed  in  their  interest.3 

For  the  dead  were  powerful;  their  action  was  still  felt;  they 
were  not  immured  in  the  tomb  or  confined  beneath  the  ground. 
Men  saw  them  reappear  in  dreams,  wearing  their  former  aspect. 
They  were  descried  during  shadowy  vigils;  their  voices  were 

zPensies,  III,  194  (t.  II,  p.  103,  ed.  Brunschvigg). 
s  See  Lecture  I,  ' '  Lif  a  in  the  Tomb. ' ' 


4  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

heard  and  their  movements  noted.  Imagination  conceived  them 
such  as  they  had  once  been;  recollection  of  them  filled  the 
memory  and  to  think  of  such  apparitions  as  idle  or  unreal  seemed 
impossible.  The  dead  subsisted,  then,  as  nebulous,  impalpable 
beings,  perceived  by  the  senses  only  exceptionally.  Here  the  belief 
that  their  remains  had  not  quite  lost  all  feeling  mingled  with 
the  equally  primitive  and  universal  belief  that  the  soul  is  a 
breath,  exhaled  with  the  last  sigh.  The  vaporous  shade,  sometimes 
a  dangerous  but  sometimes  a  succouring  power,  wandered  by 
night  in  the  atmosphere  and  haunted  the  places  which  the  living 
man  had  been  used  to  frequent.  Except  for  some  sceptical  reason- 
ers,  all  antiquity  admitted  the  reality  of  these  phantoms.  Cen- 
tury-old beliefs,  maintained  by  traditional  rites,  thus  persisted, 
more  or  less  definitely,  in  the  popular  mind,  even  after  new 
forms  of  the  future  life  were  imagined.  Many  vestiges  of  these 
beliefs  have  survived  until  today. 

The  first  transformation  undergone  by  the  primitive  concep- 
tion was  to  entertain  the  opinion  that  the  dead  who  are  deposited 
in  the  ground  gather  together  in  a  great  cavity  inside  the  bowels 
of  the  earth.4  This  belief  in  the  nether  world  is  found  among  most 
of  the  peoples  of  the  Mediterranean  basin :  the  Sheol  of  the  He- 
brews differs  little  from  the  Homeric  Hades  and  the  Italic  Inferi. 

It  has  been  conjectured  that  the  substitution  of  incineration 
for  inhumation  contributed  to  spreading  this  new  manner  of 
conceiving  life  beyond  the  tomb:  the  shade  could  not  remain 
attached  to  a  handful  of  ashes  enclosed  in  a  puny  urn.  It  went, 
then,  to  join  its  fellows  who  had  gone  down  into  the  dark  dwell- 
ing where  reigned  the  gods  of  a  subterranean  kingdom.  But  as 
ghosts  could  leave  their  graves  in  order  to  trouble  or  to  help 
men,  so  the  swarms  of  the  infernal  spirits  rose  to  the  upper  world 
through  the  natural  openings  of  the  earth,  or  through  ditches  dug 
for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  communication  with  them  and 
conciliating  them  with  offerings. 

The  Romans  do  not  seem  to  have  imagined  survival  in  the 
infernal  regions  very  differently  from  the  survival  of  the  vague 
monotonous  shades  in  their  tombs.  Their  Manes  or  Lemures  had 
no  marked  personality  or  clearly  characterised  individual  fea- 
tures. The  Inferi  were  not,  as  in  Greece,  a  stage  for  the  enactment 
of  a  tragic  drama ;  their  inhabitants  had  no  original  life,  and  in 
the  lot  dealt  to  them  no  idea  of  retribution  can  be  discerned. 

4  See  Lecture  II,  '  *  The  Nether  World. ' ' 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  5 

In  this  matter  it  was  the  Hellenes  who  imposed  their  conceptions 
of  Hades  on  the  Italic  peoples  and  gave  them  those  half  mythical 
and  half  theological  beliefs  which  Orphism  had  introduced  in 
their  own  religion.  Hellenic  influence  was  felt  directly  through 
the  colonies  of  Greater  Greece,  indirectly  through  the  Etruscans, 
whose  funeral  sculpture  shows  us  that  they  had  adopted  all  the 
familiar  figures  of  the  Greek  Hades — Charon,  Cerberus,  the 
Furies,  Hermes  Psychopompos  and  the  others.5 

From  the  time  when  Latin  literature  had  its  beginnings  and 
the  Latin  theatre  was  born,  we  find  writers  taking  pleasure  in 
reproducing  the  Hellenic  fables  of  Tartarus  and  the  Elysian 
Fields ;  and  Plautus6  can  already  make  one  of  his  characters  say 
that  he  has  seen  "many  paintings  representing  the  pains  of 
Acheron."  This  infernal  mythology  became  an  inexhaustible 
theme  which  gave  matter  to  poetry  and  art  until  the  end  of 
antiquity  and  beyond  it.  We  shall  see,  in  later  lectures,  how  the 
religious  traditions  of  the  Greeks  were  subjected  to  various 
transformations  and  interpretations. 


But  Greece  did  not  introduce  poetic  beliefs  only  into  Rome: 
she  also  caused  her  philosophy  to  be  adopted  there  from  the 
second  century  onwards,  and  this  philosophy  tended  to  be  de- 
structive both  of  those  beliefs  and  of  the  old  native  faith  in  the 
Manes  and  in  the  Orcus.  Polybius,7  when  speaking  appreciatively 
of  the  religion  of  the  Romans,  praises  them  for  having  inculcated 
in  the  people  a  faith  in  numerous  superstitious  practices  and 
tragic  fictions.  He  considers  this  to  be  an  excellent  way  of  keep- 
ing them  to  their  duty  by  the  fear  of  infernal  punishment. 
Hence  we  gather  that  if  the  historian  thought  it  well  for  the 
people  to  believe  in  these  inventions,  then,  in  his  opinion,  en- 
lightened persons,  like  his  friends  the  Scipios,  could  see  in  them 
nothing  but  the  stratagems  of  a  prudent  policy.  But  the  scepti- 
cism of  a  narrow  circle  of  aristocrats  could  not  be  confined  to  it 
for  long  when  Greek  ideas  were  more  widely  propagated. 

Greek  philosophy  made  an  early  attack  on  the  ideas  held  as  to 
a  future  life.  Even  Democritus,  the  forerunner  of  Epicurus, 
spoke  of  "some  people  who  ignore  the  dissolution  of  our  mortal 
nature  and,  aware  of  the  perversity  of  their  life,  pass  their  time 

s  See  Lecture  II,  p.  73. 

6  Plautus,  Capt.,  V,  4,  1. 

7  Polyb.,  VI,  56,  12. 


6  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

in  unrest  and  in  fear  and  forge  for  themselves  deceitful  fables 
as  to  the  time  when  follows  their  end."8  It  is  true  that  in  the 
fourth  century  Plato's  idealism  had  supplied,  if  not  a  strict 
proof  of  immortality,  yet  reasons  for  it  sufficient  to  procure  its 
acceptance  by  such  as  desired  to  be  convinced.  But  in  the  Alex- 
andrian age,  which  was  the  surpassingly  scientific  period  of 
Greek  thought,  there  was  a  tendency  to  remove  all  metaphysical 
and  mythical  conceptions  of  the  soul's  destiny  from  the  field  of 
contemplation.  This  was  the  period  in  which  the  Academy, 
Plato's  own  school,  unfaithful  to  its  founder's  doctrines,  was 
led  by  men  who,  like  Carneades,  raised  scepticism  to  a  system  and 
stated  that  man  can  reach  no  certainty.  "We  know  that  when 
Carneades  was  sent  to  Rome  as  ambassador  in  156  B.  C.  he  made 
a  great  impression  by  maintaining  that  justice  is  a  matter  of 
convention,  and  that  he  was  consequently  banished  by  the  senate 
as  a  danger  to  the  state.  But  we  need  only  read  Cicero's  works 
to  learn  what  a  lasting  influence  his  powerfully  destructive 
dialectics  had. 

The  dogmatism  of  other  sects  was  at  this  time  hardly  at  all 
more  favourable  to  the  traditional  beliefs  in  another  life. 

Aristotle  had  thought  that  human  reason  alone  persisted,  and 
that  the  emotional  and  nutritive  soul  was  destroyed  with  the 
body,  but  he  left  no  personality  to  this  pure  intelligence,  de- 
prived of  all  sensibility.  He  definitely  denied  that  the  " blessed" 
could  be  happy.  With  him  begins  a  long  period  during  which 
Greek  philosophy  nearly  ceased  to  speculate  on  destiny  beyond 
the  grave.  It  was  repugnant  to  Peripatetic  philosophy  to  concern 
itself  with  the  existence  of  a  soul  which  could  be  neither  con- 
ceived nor  defined  by  reason.  Some  of  Aristotle's  immediate 
disciples,  like  Aristoxenus  and  Dicaearchus,  or  Straton  of  Lamp- 
sacus,  the  pupil  of  Theophrastus,  agreed  in  denying  immortality 
altogether;  and  later,  in  the  time  of  the  Severi,  Alexander  of 
Aphrodisias,  the  great  commentator  of  The  Stagirite,  undertook 
to  prove  that  the  entire  soul,  that  is  the  higher  and  the  lower 
soul,  had  need  of  the  body  in  order  to  be  active  and  perished 
with  it,  and  that  such  was  the  veritable  thought  of  the  master. 
But  profoundly  as  Peripateticism  affected  Greek  thought, 
directly  and  indirectly,  in  practically  discarding  the  future  life, 
this  was  not  the  philosophy  which  dominated  minds  towards  the 
end  of  the  Roman  Republic.  Other  schools  then  had  a  much  wider 

sDiels,  Fragm.  VorsoTcratiker*,  II,  p.  121,  fr.  297. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  7 

influence  and  made  this  influence  felt  much  more  deeply  on 
eschatological  beliefs.  These  schools  were  Epicureanism  and 
Stoicism. 

Epicurus  took  up  again  the  doctrine  of  Democritus,  and 
taught  that  the  soul,  which  was  composed  of  atoms,  was  disinte- 
grated at  the  moment  of  death,  when  it  was  no  longer  held 
together  by  its  fleshly  wrapping,  and  that  its  transitory  unity  was 
then  destroyed  for  ever.  The  vital  breath,  after  being  expelled, 
was,  he  said,  buffeted  by  the  winds  and  dissolved  in  the  air  like 
mist  or  smoke,  even  before  the  body  was  decomposed.  This  was 
so  ancient  a  conception  that  Homer  had  made  use  of  a  like  com- 
parison, and  the  idea  that  the  violence  of  the  wind  can  act  on 
souls  as  a  destructive  force  was  familiar  to  Athenian  children 
in  Plato 's  time.9  But  if  the  soul  thus  resolves  itself,  after  death, 
into  its  elementary  principles,  how  can  phantoms  come  to 
frighten  us  in  the  watches  of  the  night  or  beloved  beings  visit 
us  in  our  dreams?  These  simulacra  (€t8<oAa)  are  for  Epicurus  no 
more  than  emanations  of  particles  of  an  extreme  tenuity,  con- 
stantly issuing  from  bodies  and  keeping  for  some  time  their  form 
and  appearance.  They  act  on  our  senses  as  do  colour  and  scent 
and  awake  in  us  the  image  of  a  vanished  being. 

Thus  we  are  vowed  to  annihilation,  but  this  lot  is  not  one  to 
be  dreaded.  Death,  which  is  held  to  be  the  most  horrible  of  ills, 
is  in  reality  nothing  of  the  sort,  since  the  destruction  of  our 
organism  abolishes  all  its  sensibility.  The  time  when  we  no 
longer  exist  is  no  more  painful  for  us  than  that  when  we  had 
not  yet  our  being.  As  Plato  deduced  the  persistence  of  the  soul 
after  death  from  its  supposed  previous  existence,  so  Epicurus 
drew  an  opposite  conclusion  from  our  ignorance  of  our  earlier 
life ;  and,  according  to  him,  the  conviction  that  we  perish  wholly 
can  alone  ensure  our  tranquillity  of  spirit  by  delivering  us 
from  the  fear  of  eternal  torment. 

There  is  no  one  of  the  master's  doctrines  on  which  his  disciples 
insist  with  more  complacent  assurance.  They  praise  him  for  hav- 
ing freed  men  from  the  terrors  of  the  Beyond ;  they  thank  him 
for  having  taught  them  not  to  fear  death ;  his  philosophy  appears 
to  them  as  a  liberator  of  souls.  Lucretius  in  his  third  book,  of 
which  eighteenth-century  philosophers  delighted  to  celebrate  the 
merits,  claims,  with  a  sort  of  exaltation,  to  drive  from  men's 

9  Homer,  II.,  *,  100;  Plato,  Phaed.,  77  D;  cf.  Eohde,  Psyche,  II*,  p.  264, 
n.  2. 


8  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

hearts  "that  dread  of  Acheron  which  troubles  human  life  to  its 
inmost  depths. '  '10  The  sage  sees  all  the  cruel  fictions,  with  which 
fable  had  peopled  the  kingdom  of  terrors,  scattered  abroad,  and, 
when  he  has  rid  himself  of  the  dismay  which  haunts  the  common 
man,  which  casts  a  mournful  veil  over  things  and  leaves  no  joy 
unmixed,  he  finds  a  blessed  calm,  the  perfect  quietude  or 
"ataraxia." 

This  doctrine,  which  Lucretius  preached  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  neophyte  won  to  the  true  faith,  had  a  profound  reaction  in 
Rome.  Its  adepts  in  Cicero's  circle  were  numerous,  including 
Cassius,  the  murderer  of  Caesar.  Sallust  goes  so  far  as  to  make 
Caesar  himself  affirm,  in  full  senate,  that  death,  the  rest  from 
torment,  dispels  the  ills  which  afflict  mankind,  that  beyond  it 
there  is  neither  joy  nor  sorrow.11  Men  of  science,  in  particular, 
were  attracted  by  these  theories.  In  a  celebrated  passage  Pliny 
the  Naturalist,  after  categorically  declaring  that  neither  the  soul 
nor  the  body  has  any  more  sensation  after  death  than  before  the 
day  of  birth,  ends  with  a  vehement  apostrophe :  ' '  Unhappy  one, 
what  folly  is  thine  who  in  death  renewest  life !  "Where  will  crea- 
tures ever  find  rest  if  souls  in  heaven,  if  shades  in  the  infernal 
regions,  still  have  feeling?  Through  this  complacent  credulity 
we  lose  death,  the  greatest  boon  which  belongs  to  our  nature, 
and  the  sufferings  of  our  last  hour  are  doubled  by  the  fear  of 
what  will  follow  after.  If  it  be  indeed  sweet  to  live,  for  whom 
can  it  be  so  to  have  lived?  How  much  easier  and  more  certain 
is  the  belief  which  each  man  can  draw  from  his  own  experience, 
when  he  pictures  his  future  tranquillity  on  the  pattern  of  that 
which  preceded  his  birth!"12 

Even  Seneca  in  one  of  his  tragedies,  an  early  work,  makes  the 
chorus  of  Trojan  women  declaim  a  long  profession  of  faith  which 
is  the  purest  Epicureanism.13 

The  invasion  of  the  Roman  world  by  the  Oriental  mysteries 
and  superstitions  in  the  second  century  caused  the  unbelievers  to 
exalt  Epicurus  yet  higher.  The  satirist  Lucian,  using  almost  the 
same  expressions  as  Lucretius,  proclaims  the  truly  sacred  and 

10  HI,  38: 

"Et  metus  ille  foras  praeceps  Aeheruntis  agendus 
Funditus  humanam  qui  vitam  turbat  ab  imo. ' ' 
ii  Sail.,  Cat.,  51,  20. 
12  Pliny,  H.  N.,  VII,  55,  §  190. 
is  Seneca,  Troades,  382  ss. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  9 

divine  character  of  him  who  alone  knew  the  good  with  the  true, 
and  who  transmitted  it  to  his  disciples,  to  whom  he  gave  moral 
liberty.14  Believers  everywhere  looked  upon  him  as  a  terrible  blas- 
phemer. The  prophet  Alexander  of  Abonotichos  enjoined  all 
who  would  obtain  divine  graces  to  drive  away  with  stones  ' '  athe- 
ists, Epicureans  and  Christians,"  and  exclude  them  from  his 
mysteries.15  He  ordered  by  an  oracle  that  the  writings  of  him 
whom  he  called  "the  blind  old  man"  should  be  burnt.  When 
mysticism  and  Platonism  triumphed  in  the  Roman  world,  Epi- 
cureanism ceased  to  exist.  It  had  disappeared  in  the  middle  of 
the  fourth  century,  yet  Julian  the  Apostate  thought  it  advisable 
to  include  the  writings  of  Epicurus  among  the  books  which  were 
forbidden  to  the  priests  of  his  revived  paganism.16 

Thus  during  several  centuries  this  philosophy  had  won  a 
multitude  of  followers.  The  inscriptions  bear  eloquent  wit- 
ness to  this  fact.  The  most  remarkable  of  them  is  a  long  text 
which  was  set  out  on  the  wall  of  a  portico  in  the  little  town  of 
Oenoanda  in  Lycia.  A  worthy  citizen,  Diogenes  by  name,  who 
seems  to  have  lived  under  the  Antonines,  was  a  convinced  par- 
tisan of  the  doctrine  of  Epicurus ;  and  feeling  his  end  draw  near, 
he  wished  to  engrave  an  exposition  thereof  on  marble  for  the 
present  and  future  edification  of  his  countrymen  and  of  stran- 
gers. He  does  not  fail  to  evince  his  contempt  for  death,  at  which, 
he  says,  he  has  learnt  to  mock.  ' '  I  do  not  let  myself  be  frightened 
by  the  Tityi  and  the  Tantali  whom  some  represent  in  Hades; 
horror  does  not  seize  me  when  I  think  of  the  putrefaction  of  my 
body  .  .  .  when  the  links  which  bind  our  organism  are  loosened, 
nothing  further  touches  us."17  These  are  ideas  which  we  find 
reproduced  everywhere,  in  various  forms,  for  Epicureanism  did 
not  only  win  convinced  partisans  in  the  most  cultivated  circles, 
but  also  spread  in  the  lowest  strata  of  the  population,  as  is 
proved  by  epitaphs  expressing  unbelief  in  an  after  life.  Some  do 
not  go  beyond  a  short  profession  of  faith,  "We  are  mortal;  we 
are  not  immortal."18  One  maxim  is  repeated  so  often  that  it  is 
sometimes  expressed  only  by  initials,  "I  was  not;  I  was;  I  am 

i*Lucian,  Alex.,  c.  61;  c.  47. 
isLucian,  ibid.,  c.  38;  e.  44;  c.  47. 
is  Julian,  Epist.,  89  (p.  747,  23,  ed.  Bidez-Cumont). 

it  Cousin,  Bull.  corr.  hell,  XVI,  1897;  cf.  Usener,  Ehein.  Mus.,  N.  F., 
XLVII,  p.  428. 

isCIL,  XI,  856=Biicheler,  Carm.  epigraphica,  191. 


10  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

not ;  I  do  not  care. ' '19  So  man  goes  back  to  nothingness  whence 
he  went  forth.  It  has  been  remarked  that  this  epigraphic  formula 
was  engraved  especially  on  the  tombs  of  slaves,  who  had  slight 
reason  for  attachment  to  life.  Gladiators  also  adopted  the  sen- 
tence :  these  wretched  men,  who  were  to  prove  their  indifference 
to  death  in  the  arena,  were  taught  that  it  marked  the  destruction 
of  feeling  and  the  term  of  their  suffering. 

The  same  thought  is  sometimes  expressed  less  brutally,  almost 
touchingly.  Thus  a  comedian,  who  has  spouted  many  verses  and 
tramped  many  roads,  voices  in  his  epitaph  the  conviction  that 
life  is  a  loan,  like  a  part  in  a  play:  "My  mouth  no  longer  gives 
out  any  sound;  the  noise  of  applause  no  longer  reaches  me; 
I  paid  my  debt  to  nature  and  have  departed.  All  this  is  but 
dust."20  Another  actor,  who  recited  Homer's  verses  in  the  festi- 
vals, tells  us  that  he  "laughs  at  illusions  and  slumbers  softly," 
returning  to  the  Epicurean  comparison  of  death  with  an  uncon- 
scious sleep  which  has  no  awakening.21 

Some  wordier  unbelievers  felt  the  need  of  enlarging  on  their 
negations.22  "There  is  no  boat  of  Hades,  no  ferryman  Charon, 
no  Aeacus  as  doorkeeper,  no  dog  Cerberus.  All  we,  whom  death 
sends  down  to  the  earth,  become  bones  and  ashes  and  no  more.  .  .  . 
Offer  not  perfumes  and  garlands  to  my  stele :  it  is  but  a  stone ; 
burn  no  fire :  the  expenditure  is  vain.  If  thou  have  a  gift,  give 
it  me  while  I  live.  If  thou  givest  to  my  ashes  to  drink,  thou  wilt 
make  mud :  and  the  dead  will  not  drink.  .  .  .  When  thou  scatterest 
earth  on  my  remains,  say  that  I  have  again  become  as  I  was 
when  I  was  not. ' '  This  last  thought  occurs  frequently.  Thus  on  a 
Roman  tomb  we  read :  "We  are  and  we  were  nothing.  See,  reader, 
how  swiftly  we  mortals  go  back  from  nothingness  to  nothing- 
ness."23 

Sometimes  these  dead  adopt  a  joking  tone  which  is  almost 
macabre.  Thus  a  freedman,  merry  to  the  grave,  boasts  of  the 
amenities  of  his  new  state:  "What  remains  of  man,  my  bones, 
rests  sweetly  here.  I  no  longer  have  the  fear  of  sudden  starva- 

19  Dessau,  Inscript.  selectae,  8162  ss.;  cf.  Eecueil  des  inscriptions  du 
Font,  110:  "Non  fui,  fui,  non  sum,  non  euro." 

20  Eecueil,  143. 

21  Cf.  Lecture  VIII,  p.  192. 

22  Kaibel,  Epigr.  Graeca,  646. 

23  Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1495=CIL,  VI,  26003 : 

"Nil  sumus  et  fuimus.  Mortales  respice,  lector, 
In  nihil  ab  nihilo  quam  cito  recidimus." 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  11 

tion;  I  am  exempt  from  attacks  of  gout;  my  body  is  no  longer 
pledged  for  my  rent;  and  I  enjoy  free  and  perpetual  hospi- 
tality."24 

Often  a  grosser  Epicureanism  recommends  that  we  make  profit 
of  our  earthly  passage  since  the  fatal  term  deprives  us  for  ever 
of  the  pleasures  which  are  the  sovereign  good.  "Es  bibe  lude 
veni" — "Eat,  drink,  play,  come  hither" — is  advice  which  is 
several  times  repeated.25  Not  uncommonly,  variations  occur,  in- 
spired by  the  famous  epitaph  which  was  on  the  alleged  tomb 
of  Sardanapalus  and  is  resumed  in  the  admonition:  "Indulge 
in  voluptuousness,  for  only  this  pleasure  wilt  thou  carry  away 
with  thee";  or  as  it  is  expressed  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corin- 
thians, "Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  tomorrow  we  die."26  So  we 
read  on  a  stone  found  near  Beneventum:  "What  I  have  eaten 
and  what  I  have  drunk;  that  is  all  that  belongs  to  me."27  A 
well-known  distich  states  that  "Baths,  wine,  and  love  impair 
our  bodies,  but  baths,  wine,  and  love  make  life";28  and  a 
veteran  of  the  army  had  advice  based  on  his  own  example 
engraved  on  his  tomb,  "While  I  lived,  I  drank  willingly;  drink, 
ye  who  live."29  The  exhortation  to  enjoy  a  life  soon  to  be  inter- 
rupted by  death  is  a  traditional  theme  which  has  lent  itself  to 
many  developments  in  ancient  and  modern  poetry.  It  is  the 
formula  which  resumes  the  wisdom  of  the  popular  Epicureanism. 
Some  silver  goblets,  found  in  Boscoreale  near  Pompeii,30  show  us 
philosophers  and  poets  among  skeletons,  and  inscriptions  urging 
them  to  rejoice  while  they  live,  since  no  man  is  certain  of  the 

24  Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1247=CIL,  VI,  7193: 

"Quod  superest  homini  requiescunt   dulciter  ossa, 
Nee  sum  sollicitus  ne  subito  esuriam. 
Et  podagram  careo,  nee  sum  pensionibus  arra 
Et  gratis  aeterno  perf ruor  hospitio. ' ' 

25  Biicheler,  op.  cit.,  1500. 

26  I  Cor.  15.  32. 

27  Biicheler,  op.  cit.,  187:  "Quod  comedi  et  ebibi  tantum  meum  est."  Cf. 
ibid.,  244 :  ' '  Quod  edi,  bibi,  mecum  habeo,  quod  reliqui,  perdidi. ' ' 

28  Biicheler,  op.  cit.,  1499;  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  8157: 

' '  Balnea,  vina,  venus  corrumpunt  corpora  nostra, 
Sed  vitam  f  aciunt  balnea,  vina,  venus. ' ' 

29  Biicheler,  op.  cit.,  243:  "Dum  vixi,  bibi  libenter;  bibite  vos  qui 
vivitis. ' ' 

30  Heron  de  Villefosse,  Le  tresor  de  Boscoreale,  in  Monuments  Piot,  V, 
Paris,  1899. 


12  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

morrow.  Epicurus  appears  in  person,  his  hand  stretching  towards 
a  cake  on  a  table ;  and  between  his  legs  is  a  little  pig  lifting  his 
feet  and  snout  to  the  cake  to  take  his  share  of  it.  Above  the  cake 
are  the  Greek  words,  TO  TEA02  HAONH,  "The  supreme  end  is 
pleasure."  Horace,  when  he  advises  us  to  live  from  day  to  day 
without  poisoning  the  passing  hour  with  hopes  or  fears  for  the 
future,  speaks  of  himself,  jestingly,  as  a  fat  "hog  of  Epicurus' 
herd. '  '31  It  was  thus  that  the  vulgar  interpreted  the  precepts  of 
him  who  had  in  reality  preached  moderation  and  renunciation 
as  the  means  of  reaching  true  happiness. 


If  Epicureanism  chose  its  ground  as  the  passionate  adversary 
of  religious  beliefs,  the  other  great  system  which  shared  its 
dominance  of  minds  in  Rome,  Stoicism,  sought,  on  the  contrary, 
to  reconcile  these  beliefs  with  its  theories.  But  the  allegorical 
interpretations  which  Stoicism  suggested,  led,  indirectly,  to 
nearly  the  same  result  as  a  complete  negation,  for  when  it 
changed  the  meaning  of  the  ancient  myths  it  really  destroyed 
the  traditions  which  it  sought  to  preserve.  This  is  true  in  par- 
ticular of  its  ideas  as  to  the  future  life. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  man  is  for  the  Stoics  a  microcosm, 
who  reproduces  in  his  person  the  constitution  of  the  universe. 
The  entire  mass  of  the  world  is  conceived  by  them  as  animated 
by  a  divine  Fire,  a  first  principle  which  evokes  the  succession  of 
natural  phenomena.  An  uninterrupted  chain  of  causes,  ordered 
by  this  supreme  reason,  necessarily  determines  the  course  of 
events  and  irresistibly  governs  the  existence  of  the  great  All. 
This  cosmic  life  is  conceived  as  formed  of  an  infinite  series  of 
exactly  similar  cycles:  the  four  elements  are  periodically  reab- 
sorbed into  the  purest  of  their  number,  which  is  the  Fire  of 
intelligence,  and  then,  after  the  general  conflagration,  are  once 
more  dissociated. 

In  the  same  way  our  organism  lives,  moves  and  thinks  because 
it  is  animated  by  a  detached  particle  of  this  fiery  principle  which 
penetrates  everything.  As  this  principle  reaches  to  the  limits 
of  the  universe,  so  our  soul  occupies  the  whole  body  in  which  it 
lodges.  The  pantheism  of  the  Porch  conceives  as  material  both 
God  and  the  reason  which  rules  us,  the  reason  which  is,  in  the 
emphatic  words  of  Epictetus,32  "a  fragment  of  God."  It  is  defined 

31  Epist.,  I,  4,  16. 

32  Epict.,  Diss.,  I,  14,  6;  II,  8,  11  ( airb^iraana  tou  deov). 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  13 

as  a  hot  breath  (Trvevfxa  irvp&Sesj  anima  inflammata) ;  it  is  like  the 
purest  part  of  the  air  which  maintains  life  by  respiration,  or  the 
ardent  ether  which  feeds  the  stars.  This  individual  soul  main- 
tains and  preserves  man,  as  the  soul  of  the  world,  by  connecting 
its  various  parts,  saves  it  from  disintegration.  But  on  both  sides 
this  action  is  only  temporary;  souls  cannot  escape  the  fatal  lot 
imposed  on  the  whole  of  which  they  are  but  a  tiny  portion.  At 
the  end  of  each  cosmic  period  the  universal  conflagration 
(eKTrv/Dwo-is)  will  cause  them  to  return  to  the  divine  home  whence 
all  of  them  came  forth.33  But  if  the  new  cycle,  making  its  new 
beginning,  is  to  reproduce  exactly  that  which  preceded  it,  a 
1 '  palingenesis ' '  will  one  day  give  to  the  same  souls,  endowed  with 
the  same  qualities,  the  same  existence  in  the  same  bodies  formed 
of  the  same  elements. 

This  is  the  maximum  limit  of  the  immortality  which  the 
materialistic  pantheism  of  the  Stoic  philosophy  could  concede. 
Nor  did  all  the  doctors  agree  in  granting  it.  The  variations  of 
the  school  on  a  point  which  seems  to  us  of  capital  importance 
are  most  remarkable.  While  Cleanthes  did  indeed  admit  that  all 
souls  thus  subsisted  after  their  brief  passage  on  earth  for  thou- 
sands of  years  and  until  the  final  ekpyrosis,  for  Chrysippus  only 
the  souls  of  the  sages  had  part  in  this  restricted  immortality. 
In  order  to  win  it  they  must  temper  their  strength  by  resisting 
the  passions.  The  weak,  who  had  let  themselves  be  conquered  in 
the  struggle  of  this  life,  fell  in  the  Beyond  also.34  At  the  most 
they  obtained  a  short  period  of  after  life.  The  brevity  or  the 
absence  of  this  other  existence  was  the  chastisement  of  their 
weakness. 

Thus,  almost  the  same  moral  consequences  and  incitements  to 
good  could  be  drawn  from  a  conditional  and  diminished  immor- 
tality, as  from  the  general  eternity  of  pains  and  rewards  which 
other  thinkers  taught.  But  the  Stoics  were  not  unanimous  in 
adopting  these  doctrines.  We  do  not  clearly  perceive  how  far 
they  agreed  in  admitting  that  the  soul,  deprived  of  corporeal 
organs,  was  endowed  with  feeling  and,  in  particular,  kept  an 
individual  conscience  connected  with  that  possessed  on  earth. 
It  is  certain  that  a  definitely  negative  tendency  showed  itself  in 
Rome  among  the  sectaries  of  Zeno.  Panaetius,  the  friend  of  the 
Scipios,  and  one  of  the  writers  who  did  most  to  win  the  Romans 
over  to  the  ideas  of  the  Porch,  here  dissociated  himself  from  his 

33  Cf.,  e.g.,  Sen.,  Consol.  Marc,  end. 

s^  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  115  s. 


14  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

masters  and  absolutely  denied  personal  survival.35  This  attitude 
was  subsequently  that  of  many  Roman  Stoics  of  those  who  repre- 
sented the  school 's  tradition  most  purely.  The  master  of  the  poet 
Persius,  Cornutus,  of  whom  a  short  work  remains  to  us,  declared 
that  the  soul  died  with  the  body,  immediately.36  Similarly,  at  a 
later  date,  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  although  they  some- 
times seem  to  admit  the  possibility  of  survival,  certainly  incline 
rather  to  believe  that  souls  are  disintegrated  and  return  to  the 
elemental  mass  whence  they  were  formed.  Even  Seneca,  who  is 
more  swayed  by  other  tendencies  and  whose  wavering  thought 
does  not  always  remain  consistent  nor  perspicuous,  is  not  con- 
vinced of  the  truth  of  immortality.  It  is  no  more  to  him  than  a 
beautiful  hope. 

How  is  it  that  Stoicism  thus  hesitated  at  a  point  on  which 
the  whole  conception  of  human  life  seems  to  us  to  depend?  It 
was  that  eschatological  theories  had  in  reality  only  a  secondary 
value  in  this  system,  of  which  the  essential  part  was  not  affected 
by  their  variability.  True  Stoicism  placed  the  realisation  of  its 
ideal  in  this  world.  For  it  the  aim  of  our  existence  here  below  was 
not  preparation  for  death  but  the  conquest  of  perfect  virtue, 
which  freed  him  who  had  attained  to  it  from  the  passions  and 
thus  conferred  on  him  independence  and  felicity.  Man  could,  of 
himself,  reach  a  complete  beatitude  which  was  not  impaired  by 
the  limits  placed  to  his  duration.  The  sage,  a  blissful  being,  was  a 
god  on  earth:  heaven  could  give  him  nothing  more.  Therefore 
for  these  philosophers  the  answer  to  the  question,  "What  be- 
comes of  us  after  death?"  did  not  depend  on  moral  considera- 
tions as  it  generally  does  for  us.  For  them  it  rather  followed  on 
physical  theories. 

If  these  theories  allow  of  different  solutions  of  the  problem  of 
immortality,  they  agree  on  one  point — the  impossibility  that  the 
soul,  if  it  is  to  last  longer  than  we,  should  go  down  into  the 
depths  of  the  earth ;  for  the  soul  was,  as  we  have  said,  conceived 
as  an  ardent  breath ;  that  is  to  say,  as  formed  of  the  two  elements, 
air  and  fire,  which  have  the  property  of  rising  to  the  heights. 
Its  very  nature  prevented  its  descent :  "it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive that  it  is  borne  downwards. '  '37  Thus  all  the  vulgar  notions 
as  to  Hades  were  in  contradiction  with  Stoic  psychology,  a  point 

35  Cic,  Tusc,  I,  79. 

36  Stob.,  Eel,  I,  384,  Wachsmuth. 

37  Sextus  Empiricus,  Adv.  Math.,  IX,  71  :  Ou5£  ras  \f/vxas  Zvevnv  v-rroporjaai 
Kdrta  0e/)o^i/as.  Cf.  Cic,  Tusc,  I,  16,  37;  17,  40. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  15 

to  which  we  will  return  in  treating  of  the  nether  world.38  These 
philosophers  do  indeed  speak  of  Hades  but,  faithful  to  their 
habits,  while  they  use  traditional  terms  they  give  them  a  new 
meaning.  ''The  descent  into  Hades"  is  for  them  simply  the  de- 
parting from  life,  the  transference  of  the  soul  to  new  surround- 
ings. Thus  Epictetus,  who  uses  this  expression  (/<a<9o8o9  eU  *Ai8ov), 
clearly  states  in  another  passage,  "  There  is  no  Hades,  no 
Acheron,  no  Cocytus,  no  Pyriphlegethon,  but  all  is  filled  with 
gods  and  demons."39  These  gods  and  demons  were,  however,  no 
more  than  personifications  of  the  forces  of  nature.40 

The  true  Stoic  doctrine  is,  then,  that  souls,  when  they  leave 
the  corpse,  subsist  in  the  atmosphere  and  especially  in  its  highest 
part  which  touches  the  circle  of  the  moon.41  But  after  a  longer 
or  less  interval  of  time  they,  like  the  flesh  and  the  bones,  are 
decomposed  and  dissolve  into  the  elements  which  formed  them. 
This  thought,  like  Epicurean  nihilism,  often  appears  in  epi- 
taphs, and  shows  how  Stoic  ideas  had  spread  among  the  people. 
|  Thus  on  a  tombstone  found  in  Moesia  we  read  first  the  mournful 
i  statement  that  there  is  neither  love  nor  friendship  among  the 
I  dead  and  that  the  corpse  lies  like  a  stone  sunk  into  the  ground. 
j  Then  the  dead  man  adds  :42 ' '  I  was  once  composed  of  earth,  water 
j  and  airy  breath  (ttvcv/xo),  but  I  perished,  and  here  I  rest,  having 
!  rendered  all  to  the  All.  Such  is  each  man 's  lot.  What  of  it  ? 
|  There,  whence  my  body  came,  did  it  return,  when  it  was  dis- 
i  solved. ' '  Sometimes  there  is  more  insistence  on  the  notion  that 
j  this  cosmic  breath,  in  which  ours  is  gathered  up,  is  the  godhead 
who  fills  and  rules  the  world.  So  in  this  epitaph:  "The  holy 
1  spirit  which  thou  didst  bear  has  escaped  from  thy  body.  That 
I  body  remains  here  and  is  like  the  earth ;  the  spirit  pursues  the 
revolving  heavens ;  the  spirit  moves  all ;  the  spirit  is  nought  else 
than  God."43  Elsewhere  we  find  the  following  brief  formula, 
which  sums  up  the  same  idea:  "The  ashes  have  my  body;  the 
sacred  air  has  borne  away  my  soul. '  '44  Very  characteristic  is  an 
inscription  inspired  by  verses  of  a  Greek  poet,  on  the  tomb  of  a 
|  Roman  woman :  ' '  Here  I  lie  dead  and  I  am  ashes ;  these  ashes  are 

38  Cf.  Lecture  II,  p.  77. 

39  Epictetus,  III,  13,  15;  cf.  II,  6,  18. 

40  Bonhofer,  Epictet.  und  die  Stoa,  1890,  p.  65. 
«  Cf.  Lecture  III,  p.  98. 

42  Arch.  Epigr.  Mitt,  aus  Oesterreich,  VI,  1882,  p.  60;  cf.  Epictetus,  I.  c. 

43  CIL,  XIII,  8371,  at  Cologne. 

44CIL,  III,  6384:  "Corpus  habent  cineres,  animam  sacer  abstulit  aer." 


16  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

earth.  If  the  earth  be  a  goddess,  I  too  am  a  goddess  and  am  not 
dead."45 

These  verses  express  the  same  great  thought  in  various  forms : 
death  is  disappearance  into  the  depths  of  divine  nature.  It  is  not 
for  the  preservation  of  an  ephemeral  personality  that  we  must 
hope.  Our  soul,  a  fleeting  energy  detached  from  the  All,  must 
enter  again  into  the  All  as  must  our  body :  both  are  absorbed  by 
God, 

''When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 
Turns  again  home. ' M6 

The  fiery  breath  of  our  intelligence  is  gathered,  as  are  the  matter 
and  the  humours  of  our  organism,  into  the  inexhaustible  reser- 
voir which  produced  them,  as  one  day  the  earth  and  the  heavens 
will  be  gathered  thither  also.  All  must  be  engulfed  in  one  whole, 
must  lose  itself  in  one  forgetfulness.  "When  man  has  reached  the 
term  of  his  fate,  he  faints  into  the  one  power  which  forms  and 
leads  the  universe,  just  as  the  tired  stars  will  be  extinguished  in 
it,  when  their  days  shall  be  accomplished.  Resistance  to  the 
supreme  law  is  vain  and  painful;  rebellion  against  the  irresist- 
ible order  of  things  is  impious.  The  great  virtue  taught  by 
Stoicism  is  that  of  submission  to  the  fatality  which  guides  the 
world,  of  joyous  acceptance  of  the  inevitable.  Philosophic  litera- 
ture and  the  epitaphs  present  to  us,  repeatedly  and  in  a  thousand 
forms,  the  idea  that  we  cannot  strive  against  omnipotent  neces- 
sity, that  the  rule  of  this  rigid  master  must  be  borne  without 
tears  or  recriminations.  The  wise  man,  who  destroys  within  him- 
self desire  of  any  happenings,  enjoys  even  during  this  existence 
divine  calm  in  the  midst  of  tribulations,  but  those  whom  the 
vicissitudes  of  life  drive  or  attract,  who  let  illusions  seduce  or 
grieve  them,  will  at  last  obtain  remission  of  their  troubles  when 
they  reach  the  tranquil  haven  of  death.  This  thought  is  ex- 
pressed by  a  distich  which  often  recurs  on  tombs,  in  Greek  and  in 
Latin. ' '  I  have  fled,  escaped.  Farewell,  Hope  and  Fortune.  I  have 
nothing  more  to  do  with  you.  Make  others  your  sport. '  '47 

45  Dessau,  Inscr.  set,  8168;  Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1532;  cf.  974: 

"Mortua  heie  ego  sum  et  sum  cinis,  is  cinis  terrast, 
Sein  est  terra  dea,  ego  sum  dea,  mortua  non  sum." 

46  Tennyson,  Crossing  the  Bar. 

47  Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1498 : 

' '  Evasi  effugi ;  Spes  et  Fortuna  valete ; 
Nil  mihi  vobiscum.  Ludificate  alios. ' ' 
Cf.  Biicheler,  409,  9;  434;  Anthol.  Pal,  IX,  49;  172;  Vettius  Valens,  V,  9 
(p.  219,  26,  Kroll). 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  17 

Stoic  determinism  found  support  in  the  astrology  which 
originated  in  Babylonia  and  was  transplanted  to  Egypt,  and 
which  spread  in  the  Graeco-Latin  world  from  the  second  century 
B.  C.  onwards,  propagating  its  mechanical  and  fatalistic  concep- 
tion of  the  universe.  According  to  this  pseudo-science,  all  physical 
phenomena  depended  absolutely,  like  the  character  and  acts  of 
men,  on  the  revolutions  of  the  celestial  bodies.  Thus  all  the  forces 
of  nature  and  the  very  energy  of  intelligence  acted  in  accordance 
with  an  inflexible  necessity.  Hence  worship  had  no  object  and 
prayer  no  effect.  In  this  way  the  sidereal  divination,  which  had 
grown  up  in  the  temples  of  the  East,  ended  in  Greece,  among 
certain  of  its  adepts,  in  a  negation  of  the  very  basis  of  religion.48 
It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  writings  left  to  us  there  is  hardly 
an  allusion  to  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  When  they  speak  of 
what  comes  after  death  there  is  question  only  of  funerals  and 
posthumous  glory.  We  never  find  in  them  a  promise  to  the  unfor- 
tunate, weighed  down  by  misadventure  and  infirmities,  of  con- 
solation or  compensation  in  the  Beyond.  The  systematic  astrology 
of  the  Greeks  limits  its  horizon  to  this  world,  although  traces  of 
the  belief  in  Hades  subsist  in  its  vocabulary  and  its  predictions 
and  although  this  same  astral  divination  inspired  in  the  mys- 
teries certain  eschatological  theories,  as  we  shall  see  later.49 


The  rationalistic  and  scientific  period  of  Hellenic  thought 
which  began,  as  we  have  said,  with  Aristotle,  filled  the  Hel- 
lenistic period  and  continued  until  the  century  of  Augustus. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  Roman  Republic  faith  in  the  future  life 
was  reduced  to  a  minimum  and  the  scepticism  or  indifference  of 
the  Alexandrians  was  carried  into  Italy.  The  mocking  verses  of 
an  epigram  of  Callimachus,  a  man  of  learning  as  well  as  a  poet, 
is  well  known.50  "Charidas,  what  is  there  down  below?  Deep 
darkness.  But  what  of  the  journeys  upwards?  All  lies.  And 
Pluto  ?  A  fable.  Then  we  are  lost. ' '  Catullus  was  to  say  as  much, 
less  lightly,  with  a  deeper  feeling.  "Suns  can  set  and  rise  again, 
but  we,  when  our  brief  light  is  extinguished,  must  sleep  for  an 

48  See  my  Oriental  religions,  p.  180;  276,  n.  51  s. 

49  See  Lecture  III,  pp.  96,  107;  VII,  p.  176. 
so  Callim.,  Epigr.,  15,  3 : 

'ft  Xapida  tI  ra  vtpde; — IIoXi)  (Xk6tos — Al  5'S.vodoi  rt; 
<&ev5os — '0  5£  UXovtwv; — Mvdos — ' Airw\6/x€6a 


18  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

eternal  night."51  The  religions  belief  in  retribution  in  the  Be- 
yond was  shaken,  as  all  the  others  were,  not  only  in  literary  and 
philosophic  circles  but  among  a  large  section  of  the  population. 
The  old  tales  of  the  Elysian  Fields  and  Tartarus  no  longer  found 
credence,  as  convincing  testimony  will  show  us.52  Those  who 
sought  to  preserve  them  could  do  so  only  by  using  a  daring 
symbol  which  altered  their  character.  But  the  idea  of  conscious 
survival  after  death  was  itself  no  longer  looked  upon  as  sure. 
Many  who  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  deny  it  brutally  were  firmly 
agnostic.  When  we  turn  over  the  pages  of  the  thick  volumes  of 
the  Corpus  inscriptionum,  we  are  struck  by  the  small  number 
of  the  epitaphs  which  express  the  hope  of  immortality.  The  im- 
pression received  is  quite  the  contrary  of  that  given  by  going 
through  our  own  graveyards  or  surveying  the  collections  of 
Christian  epitaphs  of  antiquity.  On  by  far  the  larger  number 
of  the  tombs  the  survival  of  the  soul  was  neither  affirmed  nor 
denied;  it  was  not  mentioned  otherwise  than  by  the  banal  for- 
mula Dis  M anions — so  bereft  of  meaning  that  even  some  Chris- 
tians made  use  of  it.  Or  else  the  authors  of  funereal  inscriptions, 
like  the  contemporary  writers,  used  careful  phrases  which  showed 
their  mental  hesitations :  "If  the  Manes  still  perceive  anything. 
...  If  any  feeling  subsist  after  death.  ...  If  there  be  reward  for 
the  righteous  beneath  the  ground."53  Such  doubting  propositions 
are  most  frequent.  The  same  indecision  made  people  return  to  an 
alternative  presented  by  Plato  in  the  Apology,54  before  his  ideas 
had  evolved,  and  repeat  that  death  is  ' '  an  end  or  a  passage, ' ' — • 
mors  aut  finis  ant  transit  us, — and  no  choice  is  made  between  the 
two  possibilities:  the  question  is  left  open.  The  future  life  was 
generally  regarded  as  a  consoling  metaphysical  conception,  a 
mere  hypothesis  supported  by  some  thinkers,  a  religious  hope 
but  not  an  article  of  faith.  The  lofty  conclusion  which  ends 
Agricola's  eulogy  will  be  remembered.  "If,"  says  Tacitus, 
"there  be  an  abode  of  the  spirits  of  virtuous  men,  if,  as  sages 
have  taught,  great  souls  be  not  extinguished  with  the  body,  rest 
in  peace."  But  side  by  side  with  the  supposition  thus  hazarded, 

si  Cat.,  V,  4 : 

1 '  Soles  occidere  et  redire  possunt ; 
Nobis  quum  semel  oceidit  brevis  lux, 
Nox  est  perpetua  una  dormienda. ' ' 

52  Cf.  Lecture  II,  p.  83,  and  VII,  p.  181. 

53  Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  180,  1147,  1190,  1339,  etc. 

54  Plato,  Apol.,  40c-41c. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  19 

the  historian  expresses  the  assurance  that  Agrieola  will  receive 
another  reward  for  his  merits.  All  that  his  contemporaries  have 
loved  and  admired  in  his  character  will  canse  the  fame  of  his 
deeds  to  live  in  men's  memory  through  the  eternity  of  ages. 

We  here  see  how  the  perplexity  in  which  men  struggled,  when 
they  thought  of  psychic  survival,  gave  earthly  immortality  a 
greater  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  ancients.  It  was  for  many  of  them 
the  essential  point  because  it  alone  was  certain.  Not  to  fall  into 
the  abyss  of  forgetfulness  seemed  a  sufficient  reward  for  virtue. 
"Death  is  to  be  feared  by  those  for  whom  everything  is  extin- 
guished with  their  life,  not  by  those  whose  renown  cannot 
perish."55  That  the  commemoration  of  our  merits  may  not  cease 
when  the  short  time  of  our  passage  here  below  has  ended,  but 
may  be  prolonged  for  as  long  as  the  sequence  of  future  genera- 
tions lasts — this  is  the  deep  desire  which  stimulates  virtue  and 
excites  to  effort.  Cicero,  when  celebrating  in  the  Pro  Archia™ 
the  benefits  wrought  by  the  love  of  glory, — from  which  he  was  by 
no  means  exempt  himself, — remarks  shrewdly  that  even  philos- 
ophers, who  claim  to  show  its  vanity,  are  careful  to  place  their 
names  at  the  beginning  of  their  books,  thus  showing  the  worth 
they  attach  to  that  which  they  exhort  others  to  despise.  Even 
more  than  today,  the  hope  of  a  durable  renown,  the  anxiety  that 
their  fellows  should  be  busy  about  them  even  after  their  depar- 
ture, the  preoccupation  lest  their  life  should  not  be  favourably 
judged  by  public  opinion,  haunted  many  men,  secretly  or  avow- 
edly dominated  their  thought  and  directed  their  actions.  Even 
those  who  had  played  only  a  modest  part  in  the  world  and  had 
made  themselves  known  only  to  a  narrow  circle,  sought  to  render 
their  memory  unforgettable  by  building  strong  tombs  for  them- 
selves along  the  great  roads.  Epitaphs  often  begin  with  the 
formula  Memoriae  aeternae,  "To  the  eternal  memory,"  which 
we  have  inherited,  although  the  idea  it  represents  no  longer  has 
for  most  of  us  any  but  a  very  relative  value. 

In  antiquity  it  was  first  connected  with  the  old  belief  in  a 
communion  of  sentiments  and  an  exchange  of  services  between 
the  deceased  and  their  descendants  who  celebrated  the  funeral 
cult.  When  the  firm  belief  in  the  power  of  the  shades  to  feel  and 
act  ceased  to  exist,  offerings  were  made  with  another  intention : 

55  Cic,  Parad.  Stoic,  II,  18:   "Mors  est  terribilis  iis  quorum  cum  vita 
omnia  exstinguntur,  non  iis  quorum  laus  emori  non  potest. ' ' 
se  Cic,  Pro  Archia,  11,  26;  cf.  Tusc,  I,  15,  34. 


20  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

survivors  liked  to  think  that  he  who  had  gone  had  not  entirely 
perished  as  long  as  his  remembrance  subsisted  in  the  hearts  of 
those  who  had  cherished  him  and  the  minds  of  those  who  had 
learnt  his  praises.  In  some  way,  he  rose  from  the  grave  in  the 
image  made  of  him  by  the  successors  of  those  who  had  known 
him.  Epicurus  himself  stipulated  in  his  will  that  the  day  of  his 
birth  should  be  commemorated  every  month,57  and  under  the 
Roman  Empire  his  disciples  were  still  piously  celebrating  this 
recurring  feast.  Thus  this  deep  instinct  of  preservation,  which 
impels  human  beings  to  desire  survival,  showed  itself  even  in  him 
who  contributed  most  of  all  to  destroy  faith  in  immortality. 


It  is  always  with  difficulty  that  men  resign  themselves  to 
dying  wholly.  Even  when  reason  admits,  nay  when  it  desires, 
annihilation,  the  subconscious  self  protests  against  it;  our  per- 
sonality is  impelled  by  its  very  essence  to  crave  the  persistence  of 
its  self.  Besides,  the  feelings  of  survivors  rebel  against  the  pain  of 
an  unending  separation,  the  definite  loss  of  all  affections.  In  the 
troubled  times  which  marked  the  end  of  the  Roman  Republic,  at 
a  moment  when  changing  fortune  periodically  turned  all  the 
conditions  of  existence  upside  down,  there  grew  up  a  stronger 
aspiration  to  a  better  future,  a  search,  to  use  the  words  of  the 
ancients,  for  a  sure  haven,  in  which  man,  tossed  by  the  storms  of 
life,  might  find  quiet.  Thus  in  the  first  century  B.  C.  the  birth  was 
seen,  or  rather  the  rebirth,  of  a  mystic  movement  which  claimed 
to  give  by  direct  communication  with  God  the  certainties  which 
reason  could  not  supply.  The  chief  preoccupation  of  philosophers 
began  to  be  those  capital  questions  as  to  the  origin  and  end  of 
man  which  the  schools  of  the  earlier  period  had  neglected  as 
unanswerable.  It  was  above  all  the  Neo-Pythagoreans  who  gave 
up  pure  rationalism,  and  thus  brought  Roman  thought  to  admit 
new  forms  of  immortality. 

When  the  scientific  school  of  the  old  Pythagorism  came  to  an 
end  in  Italy  in  the  fourth  century,  the  sect  perpetuated  itself 
obscurely  in  mysterious  conventicles,  a  sort  of  freemasonry  of 
which  the  influence  in  the  Hellenistic  period  is  difficult  to  meas- 
ure or  circumscribe.  It  again  took  on  new  power  in  Alexandria 
under  the  Ptolemies.  In  this  metropolis,  in  which  all  the  currents 
of  Europe  and  Asia  were  mingled,  Pythagorism  admitted  at  this 

57  Diog.  Laert.,  X,  16=fragm.  217  Usener;  cf.  Plin.,  H.  N.,  XXXV,  5. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  21 

time  many  ideas  foreign  to  the  teaching  of  the  old  master  of 
Samos.  This  teaching  seems  not  to  have  set  forth  a  rigid, 
logically  constructed  theology,  and  the  points  of  contact  with 
the  beliefs  of  the  East,  which  its  ideas  supplied,  favoured  an 
accommodating  syncretism.  Pythagoras  was  said  to  have  had 
Plato  as  a  disciple,  and  Plato  was  venerated  almost  as  much  as 
the  teacher  he  followed.  The  powerful  structure  of  Stoic  panthe- 
ism did  not  fail  to  exercise  an  ascendency  over  the  theorists  of 
the  school.  This  school  had  been,  from  its  origin,  in  touch  with 
the  Orphic  mysteries  and  those  of  Dionysos  and  it  remained  so, 
but  it  was  also  subject  to  the  more  remote  influence  of  Baby- 
lonian and  Egyptian  religions,  and  particularly  of  those  Chal- 
dean doctrines  which  the  Greeks  had  learnt  to  know  after 
Alexander's  conquest. 

This  vast  eclecticism,  open  to  all  novelties,  did  not  bring 
about  a  break  with  the  past.  Theology  succeeded  in  effecting  a 
reconciliation  with  all,  even  the  rudest  and  most  absurd  tradi- 
tions of  fable,  by  an  ingenious  system  of  moral  allegories. 
"Divine"  Homer  thus  became  a  master  of  piety  and  wisdom, 
and  mythology  a  collection  of  edifying  stories.  Demonology  made 
it  possible  to  justify  all  the  traditional  practices  of  the  cult,  as 
well  as  magic  and  divination:  everything  which  seemed  incom- 
patible with  the  new  idea  of  the  divinity  was  ascribed  to  lower 
powers.  Thus  the  Pythagoreans  could  take  up  the  position  not  of 
adversaries  or  reformers  but  of  interpreters  of  the  ancestral  reli- 
gion. They  claimed  that  they  remained  faithful  to  the  wisdom 
of  the  sages  who,  at  the  dawn  of  civilisation,  had  received  a 
divine  revelation,  which  had  been  transmitted  first  to  Pythago- 
ras and  then  to  Plato.  They  felt  so  sure  that  they  were  express- 
ing the  thought  of  these  masters,  whose  authority  made  law,  that 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  subscribe  the  venerated  names,  by  a 
pious  fraud,  to  their  own  writings.  Nowhere  did  apocryphal 
literature  have  a  more  luxuriant  efflorescence  than  in  these 
circles. 

When  the  sect  was  introduced  into  Rome  it  sought,  according 
to  its  wont,  to  connect  itself  with  old  local  traditions,  and  with- 
out much  difficulty  it  succeeded.  The  national  pride  of  the  con- 
querors of  Greece  could,  with  some  complacency,  regard  it  as 
Italic.  Pythagoras  passed  for  the  teacher  of  King  Numa,  the 
religious  legislator  of  the  city.  Ennius  had  expressed  this  philos- 
opher's doctrine  in  his  poems,  and  altogether,  from  the  time  of 


22  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

the  ancient  republic  onwards,  the  half  mythical  moralist  of 
Greater  Greece  enjoyed  singular  consideration  in  Rome.58 

But  the  first  to  give  new  life  to  the  Pythagorean  school,  which 
had  died  in  Italy  centuries  before,  was,  according  to  Cicero,  his 
friend,  the  senator  Nigidius  Figulus,  a  curious  representative 
of  the  scientific  religiosity  which  characterised  the  sect.  This 
Roman  magistrate,  a  man  of  singular  erudition,  was  bitten  with 
all  the  occult  sciences.  A  grammarian,  a  naturalist  and  a  theolo- 
gian, he  was  also  an  astrologer  and  magician  and,  on  occasion,  a 
wonder  worker.  He  did  not  confine  himself  to  theory  but 
gathered  about  him  a  club  of  the  initiate,  of  whom  we  cannot  say 
whether  they  were  most  attracted  by  scientific  curiosity,  by 
austere  morals  or  by  mystic  practices.  Vatinius,  the  relative  and 
friend  of  Caesar,  and,  probably,  the  spiritualist  Appius  Claudius 
Pulcher  were  the  most  prominent  of  this  circle  of  converts. 

It  is  significant  that  at  much  the  same  time  the  historian 
Castor  of  Rhodes  claimed  to  interpret  Roman  usages  by  Pythag- 
orism,59  and  the  stories  establishing  a  connection  between  the 
Roman  state  and  the  reformers  of  Greater  Greece  were  multi- 
plied. In  the  Augustan  age  a  worldly  poet  like  Ovid60  thought  it 
permissible  to  introduce  into  his  Metamorphoses,  where  no  digres- 
sion of  the  sort  was  to  be  looked  for,  a  long  speech  of  Pythagoras 
explaining  vegetarianism  and  transmigration.  A  little  later 
Antonius  Diogenes,  the  romancer,  found  in  the  same  philosophy 
inspiration  for  his  fantastic  pictures  of  the  lot  of  souls.61  All  this 
goes  to  show  how  powerfully  seductive  the  new  sect  proved  to  be 
as  soon  as  it  was  revived  in  Rome. 

But  it  did  not  lack  enemies.  Public  malignity  did  not  spare 
these  mysterious  theosophists  who  met  in  subterranean  crypts. 
They  were  blamed  for  neglecting  the  national  cult,  which  had 
ensured  the  greatness  of  the  city,  in  order  to  indulge  in  con- 
demned practices  or  even  to  commit  abominable  crimes.  It  was 
a  more  serious  matter  that  their  secret  gatherings  also  excited 
the  suspicion  of  the  authorities,  and  that  the  partakers  were 
prosecuted  as  persons  who  dealt  in  magic,  which  was  punishable 
by  law.  The  little  Pythagorean  church  seems  not  to  have  been 
able  to  maintain  itself  in  the  capital  for  long.  In  Seneca's  time 
it  was  dead.62 

58  Furtwangler,  Die  antiken  Gemmen,  III,  1900,  257  ss. 

59  See  Lecture  III,  p.  97.  eo  Ovid,  Metam.,  XV,  60  ss. 
ei  Eohde,  Der  Gricch.  Bomanz,  p.  270  s. 

62  Sen.,  Quaest.  not.,  VII,  32,  2. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  23 

But  Pythagorism  continued  to  find  adepts  in  the  empire  and 
soon  returned  to  Rome.  Under  Domitian,  Apollonius  of  Tyana 
made  the  East  resound  with  his  preaching  and  miracles,  and 
although  thrown  into  prison  by  this  emperor  he  was  in  favour 
with  his  successors.  Under  the  Antonines,  the  false  prophet  Alex- 
ander of  Abonotichos,  unmasked  by  Lucian,  claimed  to  be  a  new 
incarnation  of  the  sage  of  Samos,  whose  wisdom  he  pretended  to 
reveal  in  his  mysteries.  The  literary  tradition  of  the  sect  main- 
tained itself  until  the  third  century,  when  it  was  absorbed  by 
Neo-Platonism.  In  a  period  of  syncretism,  the  originality  of  this 
philosophy  resided  less  in  its  doctrine  than  in  its  observances, 
and  when  its  conventicles  were  dissolved,  it  easily  merged  itself 
in  the  school  which  professed  to  continue  it.  During  its  long  life 
Pythagorism  had  indeed  had  a  powerful  influence,  not  only  on 
the  system  of  Plato  and  Plotinus,  but  also  on  the  Oriental  cults 
which  spread  under  the  empire.  It  had  supplied  the  first  type  of 
the  learned  mysteries  in  which  knowledge  (yvwo-is)  is  at  once  the 
condition  and  the  end  of  sanctification.63  Possibly  it  even  pene- 
trated into  Gaul  at  an  early  date,  by  way  of  Marseilles,  and  was 
thus  known  to  the  Druids. 

It  would  certainly  be  a  mistake  to  look  upon  Pythagorism  as  a 
pure  philosophy,  like  Epicureanism  and  Stoicism.  Its  sectaries 
formed  a  church  rather  than  a  school,  a  religious  order,  not  an 
academy  of  sciences.  Prom  a  recent  discovery  in  Rome,  if  my 
interpretation  of  the  monument  is  right,64  we  have  learnt  that 
the  Pythagoreans  met  in  underground  basilicas,  constructed  on 
the  model  of  Plato's  cavern,  in  which,  according  to  the  great 
idealist,  the  chained  men  see  only  the  shades  of  the  higher 
realities.65  A  foundation  sacrifice,  that  of  a  dog  and  a  young  pig, 
was  made  before  this  basilica  was  constructed.  Its  stucco  decora- 
tion is  borrowed  almost  entirely  from  Greek  mythology  or  the 
ceremonies  of  the  mysteries.  Secret  rites  and  varied  purifications 
had  to  be  accomplished  in  it;  hymns  accompanied  by  sacred 
music  were  sung;  and  from  a  chair  within  the  apse  the  doctors 
gave  esoteric  teaching  to  the  faithful.  They  taught  them  the 
symbols  in  which  the  truths  of  faith  and  the  precepts  of  conduct, 
formerly  revealed  by  Pythagoras  and  the  other  sages,  were 
handed  down  in  enigmatic  form.  These  remote  disciples  inter- 
preted all  the  myths  of  the  past,  and  especially  the  Homeric 

es  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  121. 

e*  Revue  archeologique,  1918,  VIII,  p.  52  ss. 

65  Plato,  Eepubl,  VII,  p.  514. 


24  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

poems,  by  psychological  or  eschatological  allegories.  They  laid 
down,  as  definite  commandments,  a  rule  of  strict  observance 
which  included  all  the  acts  of  daily  life.  At  dawn,  after  he  had 
offered  a  sacrifice  to  the  rising  Sun,  the  pious  man  must  decide 
on  the  way  in  which  his  day  was  to  be  employed.  Every  evening 
he  must  make  a  threefold  examination  of  conscience,  and,  if  he 
had  been  guilty  of  any  sin  of  omission  or  commission,  must 
make  an  act  of  contrition.  He  was  obliged  to  follow  a  purely 
vegetarian  diet  and  to  practise  many  abstinences,  to  make 
repeated  prayers,  to  meditate  lengthily.  This  austere  and  cir- 
cumstantial system  of  morals  would  ensure  happiness  and  wis- 
dom on  earth  and  salvation  in  the  Beyond. 

All  the  Neo-Pythagoreans  agree  in  stating  that  the  human 
soul  is  related  to  God  and  therefore  immortal.  Many,  like  the 
Stoics,  look  upon  it  as  a  parcel  of  the  ether,  an  effluvium  of  burn- 
ing and  luminous  fluid  which  fills  the  celestial  spaces  and  shines 
in  the  divine  stars.  Others,  who  are  nearer  to  Plato,  believe  it  to 
be  immaterial  and  define  it  as  a  number  in  movement.  Always, 
generation  is  regarded  as  a  fall  and  a  danger  for  the  soul.  En- 
closed in  the  body  as  in  a  tomb,  it  runs  the  risk  of  corruption, 
even  of  perishing.  Earthly  existence  is  a  hard  voyage  on  the 
stormy  waters  of  matter,  which  are  perpetually  rolling  and 
surging.  Thus  a  fundamental  pessimism  looked  upon  life  here 
below  as  a  trial  and  a  chastisement ;  a  radical  dualism  placed  the 
body  in  opposition  to  the  divine  essence  residing  in  it.  The  con- 
stant care  of  the  sage  was  to  keep  his  soul  from  pollution  by  its 
contact  with  the  flesh.  He  abstained  from  meat  and  other  foods 
which  might  corrupt  it ;  a  series  of  tabus  protected  it  against  all 
contagion.  Ritual  purifications  restored  to  it  its  purity  (ayj/eta) 
which  was  continually  threatened.  The  unwearying  exercise  of 
virtue,  the  scrupulous  practice  of  piety  preserved  its  original 
nature.  Music,  which  caused  it  to  vibrate  in  harmony  with  the 
universe,  and  science,  which  lifted  it  towards  divine  things, 
prepared  its  ascension  to  heaven.  Meditation  was  a  silent  prayer, 
which  placed  reason  in  communication  with  the  powers  on  high. 
Seized  by  love  for  the  eternal  beauties,  it  rose  in  its  transports 
even  in  this  life  to  God,  identified  itself  with  Him  and  so  rendered 
itself  worthy  of  a  blessed  immortality.66 

When  the  death  determined  by  destiny  occurred,  the  soul 
escaped  from  the  body  in  which  it  was  captive  but  kept  its  bodily 
form  and  appearance,  and  this  simulacrum  (ei'SwAov)  appeared  to 

ee  See  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  209  ss. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  25 

men  in  dreams  and  after  evocations.  According  to  some  Pythag- 
oreans, this  subtle  form  was  distinct  from  the  soul  ( \\jvxn  ) ,  which 
ascended  immediately  to  the  higher  spheres.  Others  believed  that, 
like  a  light  garment,  it  wrapped  the  soul,  which  was  for  some 
time  constrained  to  dwell  here  below.67  After  this  shade  had 
remained  beside  the  body  or  somewhere  near  the  tomb  for  a 
certain  number  of  days,  it  rose  in  the  atmosphere  in  which  con- 
tended winds,  water  and  fire,  and  was  purified  by  the  elements. 
This  zone,  the  lowest  circle  of  the  world,  was  what  fable  had 
called  hell  (Inferi),  and  it  was  of  this  passage  from  one  circle 
to  that  next  it  that  poets  spoke  when  they  told  of  the  Styx  and 
Charon's  boat.68  When  the  soul  had  been  purified  it  was  borne, 
uplifted  by  the  winds,  to  the  sphere  of  the  moon.  Here  lay  the 
boundary  of  life  and  death,  the  limit  which  divided  the  residence 
of  the  immortals,  where  all  was  harmony  and  purity,  from  the 
corrupt  and  troubled  empire  of  generation.  Thus  the  luminary 
of  the  night  was  the  first  dwelling  of  the  Blessed,  and  there  lay 
the  Elysian  Fields  of  the  poets,  Proserpina's  kingdom  where  rest 
the  shades.  And  the  Fortunate  Islands,  of  which  the  ancients 
sung,  were  no  other  than  the  sun  and  the  moon,  celestial  lands 
bathed  by  the  waters  of  the  ether.69 

The  shade  remained  in  the  moon  or  was  dissolved  there,  and 
pure  reason  rose  to  the  sun  whence  it  came  forth,  or  even  reached 
the  summit  of  the  heavens  where  reigned  the  Most  High.  A  help- 
ful escort,  called  by  mythology  Hermes  the  Soul-Guide,  or 
psychopompos,  led  the  elect  to  these  Olympian  peaks.  There  they 
regained  their  true  country,  and  as  birth  had  been  to  them  a 
death,  so  their  death  was  their  rebirth.  They  enjoyed  the  con- 
templation of  the  luminous  gods.  They  were  rapt  by  the  ravish- 
ing tune  of  the  harmony  of  the  spheres,  that  divine  melody  of 
which  earthly  music  is  but  a  feeble  echo.70 

Some  souls  were  kept  on  the  banks  of  the  Styx  and  could  not 
cross  it :  in  other  words,  they  were  constrained  to  remain  on  the 
earth.  The  dead  who  had  not  had  religious  burial  must  linger 
beside  their  neglected  bodies  for  a  hundred  years,  the  normal 
span  of  a  human  life,  before  they  were  admitted  to  the  place  of 
purgation,  where  they  would  sojourn  for  ten  times  that  period.71 

67  See  Lecture  VI,  p.  167;  cf.  Ill,  p.  103. 

es  See  Lecture  II,  p.  81. 

69  See,  for  all  this,  Lecture  III,  p.  96  s. ;  cf.  VIII,  p.  195. 

to  See  Lecture  VIII,  p.  212. 

7i  See  Lecture  I,  p.  66. 


26  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

In  the  same  way  those  who  had  died  young  or  whose  days  had 
been  cut  short  by  violence  would  not  enter  the  purgatory  before 
the  due  term  of  their  life.72  But  especially  the  souls  of  the  crimi- 
nal and  the  impious  were  thus  condemned  to  wander,  restless 
and  in  pain,  through  the  lower  air,  which  they  filled  with  their 
multitude.  It  was  these  demoniac  spirits  who  returned  as  dismal 
phantoms  to  frighten  the  living,  who  were  evoked  by  wizards  and 
who  revealed  the  future  in  oracles.  Demonology  accounted  for 
all  the  aberrations  of  magic  and  divination.  These  spirits  rose  to 
the  aerial  purgatory  after  they  had  for  long  years  tormented  and 
been  tormented,  but  they  could  not  reach  the  moon,  which  re- 
pelled them;  they  were  condemned  to  reincarnation  in  new 
bodies,  either  of  men  or  of  beasts,  and  were  once  again  delivered 
to  the  fury  of  the  passions.  These  passions  are  the  Erinyes,  of 
whom  poets  sung,  that  in  Tartarus  they  burnt  criminals  with 
their  torches  and  scourged  them  with  their  whips.  For  there  was 
no  subterranean  hell :  Hades  was  in  the  air  or  on  our  earth,  and 
the  infernal  sufferings  described  by  mythology  were  the  various 
tortures  inflicted  on  the  souls  condemned  to  transmigration.73 

This  religious  philosophy,  which,  by  a  symbolism  transforming 
the  meaning  of  the  traditional  beliefs,  reconciled  these  with 
men's  intelligence,  did  more  than  any  other  to  revive  faith  in 
immortality.  Many  enlightened  men,  like  Cicero  and  Cato,  had 
sought  consolation  for  the  misfortunes  of  this  world  and  a  hope 
for  the  Beyond  in  reading  Plato,  but  Plato's  proof  of  immor- 
tality could  convince  only  those  already  convinced.74  Pythagorism, 
on  the  other  hand,  offered  to  restless  souls  a  certainty  founded 
on  a  revelation  made  to  ancient  sages,  and  it  satisfied  at  once 
the  Roman  love  for  order  and  rule,  and  the  human  love  for 
the  marvellous  and  the  mysterious.  The  evidence  of  the  effect  of 
this  philosophy  is  still  recognisable,  although  it  often  has  not 
been  recognised,  in  the  compositions  decorating  many  sepulchral 
monuments  and  in  the  wording  of  several  epitaphs.  A  tombstone 
found  at  Philadelphia  in  Lydia  is  particularly  curious.75  It  bears 
a  representation  of  the  Y  symbol,  that  is,  of  the  diverging  roads 
between  which  man  must  choose  when  he  leaves  childhood  behind 
him.  On  the  one  side  earthly  travail  leads  the  virtuous  man  to 
eternal  rest;  on  the  other  softness  and  debauchery  bring  the 

72  See  Lecture  V,  p.  133. 

73  See  Lecture  III,  pp.  73,  81;  VII,  p.  181  s. 

74  Cf.  Cic,  Tusc,  I,  11,  24. 

75  See  Lecture  VI,  p.  151. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  27 

vicious  man  to  a  gulf  into  which  he  falls.  A  metrical  epitaph, 
found  at  Pisaurum  (Pesaro),  hints  covertly  at  the  ideas  of  the 
school.  This  commemorates  a  child  who,  in  spite  of  his  youth, 
had  learnt  the  dogmas  of  Pythagoras  and  read  ' '  the  pious  verses 
of  Homer"  as  well  as  the  philosophers,  and  had  studied  in  Euclid 
the  sacred  science  of  numbers.  His  soul,  runs  the  inscription,76 
"goes  forward  through  the  gloomy  stars  of  deep  Tartarus 
towards  the  waters  of  Acheron, ' '  a  sentence  which  can  be  under- 
stood only  on  the  supposition  that  Tartarus  and  Acheron  had  for 
the  author  a  figurative  meaning  and  lay  in  the  depths  not  of  the 
earth  but  of  the  sky. 


The  belief  in  a  celestial  immortality  which  was  thus  propa- 
gated by  the  half  philosophical,  half  religious  sect  of  the  Pythag- 
oreans was  to  find  a  powerful  interpreter  in  a  thinker  who  had 
a  predominant  influence  over  his  contemporaries  and  the  suc- 
ceeding generation — in  Posidonius.  We  know  little  of  his  life. 
Born  at  Apamea  in  Syria,  about  the  year  135,  he  early  left  his 
native  country,  of  which  he  seems  to  have  kept  a  poor  opinion, 
and  as  a  young  student  in  Athens  he  attended  the  lectures  of 
the  older  Stoic  Panaetius.  The  universal  curiosity  which  was  to 
make  him  a  scholar  of  encyclopaedic  knowledge  soon  impelled 
him  to  take  long  journeys,  in  which  he  even  reached  the  shores 
of  the  Atlantic  and  studied  the  tides  of  the  ocean.  Upon  his 
return  he  opened  a  school  in  the  free  city  of  Rhodes  and  there 
numbered  Cicero  among  his  hearers.  When  he  died  at  the  age 
of  eighty- four  the  prestige  he  enjoyed  both  in  the  Roman  world 
and  among  the  Greeks  was  immense.  He  owed  his  intellectual 
ascendancy  as  much  to  the  marvellous  variety  of  the  knowledge 
which  he  displayed,  as  philosopher,  astronomer,  historian,  geog- 
rapher and  naturalist,  as  to  his  copious,  harmonious  and  highly 
coloured  style. 

A  theologian  rather  than  a  logician,  a  scholar  rather  than  a 
critic,  he  did  not  construct  an  original  metaphysical  system  com- 
parable to  those  of  the  great  founders  of  schools.  But  Posidonius 
was  the  most  prominent  representative  of  that  syncretism  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  showed  itself  in  the  Pythagoreans  before  his 
day  and  which  reigned  in  the  world  about  him,  because  men  were 
weary  of  the  sterile  discussions  of  opposing  thinkers.  He  gave  the 
support  of  his  authority  and  his  eloquence  to  the  eclecticism 

76  Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  434. 


28  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

which  reconciled  the  principles  of  the  ancient  Greek  schools. 
Moreover,  his  Syrian  origin  led  him  to  combine  these  doctrines 
with  the  religious  ideas  of  the  East,  which  had  with  astrology 
given  the  Hellenes  a  new  conception  of  man  and  of  the  gods.77 

It  is  exactly  here  that  Posidonius  is  important  from  the  point 
of  view  of  our  subject :  his  tendencies  represent  a  direct  reaction 
against  the  scepticism  of  his  master  Panaetius,  who  denied  both 
the  survival  of  the  soul78  and  the  possibility  of  divination.  Posi- 
donius introduced  into  Stoicism  momentous  ideas  derived  at  once 
from  Pythagorism  and  from  Eastern  cults,  and  sought  to  estab- 
lish them  firmly  by  connecting  them  with  a  system  of  the  world, 
which  his  vast  intelligence  had  sought  to  understand  in  all  its 
aspects.  His  faith  in  immortality  is  strictly  related  to  his  cosmog- 
raphy and  receives  support  from  his  physics. 

It  was  this  system  of  the  world  which  was,  thanks  to  Ptolemy's 
authority,  to  perpetuate  itself  on  the  whole  until  the  time  of 
Copernicus.  We  will  here  give  a  broad  outline  of  its  essential 
features,  because  the  eschatological  doctrines  were  to  remain  for 
centuries  connected  with  it.  The  terrestrial  globe  was  held  to 
be  suspended,  motionless,  in  the  centre  of  the  universe,  sur- 
rounded by  an  atmosphere  formed  of  the  three  other  elements 
and  reaching  to  the  moon.  That  part  of  the  atmosphere  which 
was  near  the  earth  was  thickened  and  darkened  by  heavy  vapours 
rising  from  the  soil  and  the  waters.  Above,  there  moved  a  purer 
and  lighter  air  which,  as  it  neared  the  sky,  was  warmed  by  con- 
tact with  the  higher  fires.  Still  higher  were  ranged  the  con- 
centric spheres  of  the  seven  planets,  wrapped  in  ether,  a  subtle 
and  ardent  fluid — first  the  moon,  which  still  received  and 
gave  back  the  exhalations  of  the  earth,79  then  Mercury  and 
Venus,  the  two  companions  of  the  sun  in  his  daily  course.  The 
fourth  place,  that  is,  the  middle  point  of  the  superimposed 
heavens,  was  occupied  by  the  luminary  of  the  day, — here  Posi- 
donius forsakes  Plato  and  follows  the  Chaldeans, — the  burning 
heart  of  the  world,  the  intelligent  light  which  is  the  source  of 
our  minds.80  Above  the  sun  moved  the  three  higher  planets — 
Mars,  Jupiter  and  Saturn.  And  these  seven  wandering  stars 
were  surrounded  by  the  sphere  of  the  fixed  stars,  which  were 
animated   by   constant    and   uniform   movement.    That    sphere 

77  Cf.  my  Astrology  and  Beligion,  1912,  p.  83  ss. 

78  See  above,  p.  13. 

79  See  Lecture  III,  p.  98. 

so  See  below,  Lecture  III,  p.  100  ss. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  29 

marked  the  world's  boundary:  beyond  it  there  was  only  void  or 
the  ether. 

The  universe,  as  this  philosophy  imagined  it,  had  therefore 
well-defined  limits :  when  men  raised  their  eyes  to  the  constella- 
tions of  the  firmament,  they  thought  they  perceived  its  end.  The 
depths  of  the  sky  were  not  then  unfathomable ;  he  who  sank  his 
gaze  in  them  was  not  seized  with  giddiness  at  the  abysses  nor 
bewildered  by  inconceivable  magnitudes,  and  was  not  tempted  to 
cry  with  Pascal  :81  ' '  The  eternal  silence  of  these  boundless  spaces 
affrights  me."  Nor  was  the  universe  then  a  multiplicity  of 
heavenly  bodies  moving  to  an  unknown  goal  and  perpetually 
transformed,  transitory  manifestations  of  an  energy  developed 
for  undiscoverable  ends.  The  conception  formed  of  the  world 
was  static,  not  dynamic.  It  was  a  machine  of  which  the  wheels 
turned  according  to  immutable  laws,  an  organism  of  which  all 
the  parts  were  united  by  reciprocal  sympathy  as  they  acted  and 
reacted  on  each  other. 

This  organism  was  alive,  penetrated  throughout  by  the  same 
essence  as  the  soul  which  maintains  our  life  and  thought.  This 
soul  was  an  igneous  breath  of  which  the  moral  corruption  was 
conceived  quite  materially.  When  it  gave  itself  up  to  the  desires  of 
the  senses,  to  corporeal  passions,  its  substance  thickened  and  was 
troubled,  and  the  mud  of  this  pollution  adhered  to  it  like  a  crust. 
When  the  soul  left  the  body  at  the  time  of  death,  it  became  a 
spirit  like  the  multitude  of  demons  who  peopled  the  atmosphere. 
But  its  lot  varied  in  accordance  with  its  condition.  If  it  were 
laden  with  matter,  its  weight  condemned  it  to  float  in  the  densest 
air,  the  damp-charged  gas  which  immediately  surrounded  the 
earth,  and  its  very  composition  then  caused  it  to  reincarnate 
itself  in  new  bodies.82  But  if  it  had  remained  free  from  all  alloy 
its  lightness  caused  it  to  pass  immediately  through  this  heavier 
layer  of  air  and  bore  it  to  the  higher  spaces.  It  stopped  in  this 
ascension  when,  within  the  ether  which  was  about  the  moon,  it 
found  itself  in  surroundings  like  its  own  substance.  Some  elect 
beings,  the  divine  spirits  of  the  sages,  kept  such  purity  that  they 
rose  through  the  ether  as  far  as  the  highest  astral  spheres.  In  this 
system  the  doctrine  of  immortality  is  seen  to  be  closely  knit  up 
with  cosmography. 

si  Pascal,  Tensees,  III,  206  (t.  II,  p.  127,  Brimschvigg)  :  "Le  silence 
eternel  de  ces  espaces  infinis  m'effraie." 

82  See  Lecture  III,  p.  98;  VI,  p.  161s.;  VII,  p.  184. 


30  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

If  Posidonius  has  largely  borrowed  these  ideas  from  the  pla- 
tonising  Pythagorism  of  his  period,  he  forsook  this  philosophy 
on  an  essential  point.  As  a  Stoic  he  did  not  admit  the  transcend- 
ency of  God.  For  him,  God  was  immanent  in  the  universe;  the 
seat  of  the  directing  reason  of  the  world  ( ^ye^oviKoV )  was  the 
sphere  of  the  fixed  stars,  which  embraced  all  other  spheres  and 
determined  their  revolutions.  There  too,  at  the  summit  of  the 
world  but  not  outside  it,  the  spirits  of  the  blessed  gathered ;  from 
these  high  peaks  they  delighted  to  observe  earthly  happenings; 
and  when  a  pious  soul  tried  to  rise  to  them,  these  succouring 
heroes,  like  our  saints,  could  lend  their  aid  and  protection. 

This  philosophy  did  not  draw  its  power  of  persuasion  only 
from  its  logical  consistency,  which  satisfied  reason,  but  it  also 
made  *.  strong  appeal  to  feeling.  Posidonius  caused  a  broad 
stream  of  mystical  ideas,  undoubtedly  derived  from  the  beliefs 
developed  by  the  astral  religions  of  the  East,  to  flow  into  the  arid 
bed  of  a  Stoicism  which  had  become  scholastic.  For  him,  reason 
was  not  enclosed  in  the  body,  even  when  it  sojourned  here  below; 
it  escaped  from  it  to  pass  with  marvellous  swiftness  from  the 
depths  of  the  sea  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  the  top  of  the 
heavens;  it  flew  through  all  nature,  learning  to  know  physical 
laws  and  to  admire  the  divine  order  ever  more  and  more.  Above 
all  it  could  never  weary  of  the  sight  of  the  glowing  constellations 
and  their  harmonious  movements.  It  felt  with  emotion,  as  it  gave 
itself  up  to  contemplating  them,  its  kinship  with  the  celestial 
fires;  it  entered  into  communion  with  the  higher  gods.  In 
enthusiastic  terms,  echoed  by  his  imitators,  Posidonius  described 
the  ecstasy  which  seized  him  who  left  the  earth,  who  felt  himself 
transported  to  the  midst  of  the  sacred  chorus  of  the  stars  and 
who  followed  their  rhythmic  evolutions.  In  these  transports,  the 
soul  did  not  only  win  to  infinite  power,  but  also  received  from 
heaven  the  revelation  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  celestial 
revolutions.  Thus  even  in  this  life  it  had  a  foretaste  of  the 
beatitude  which  would  belong  to  it  after  death  when  reason,  rid 
of  the  weak  organs  of  the  senses,  would  directly  perceive  all  the 
splendours  of  the  divine  world  and  would  know  its  mysteries 
completely.83 

This  theology  attributed  to  man  a  power  such  as  to  satisfy  his 
proudest  feelings.  It  did  not  regard  him  as  a  tiny  animalcule 
who  had  appeared  on  a  small  planet  lost  in  immensity,  nor  did 

83  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  127;  VIII,  p.  210. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  31 

it,  when  he  scrutinised  the  heavens,  crush  him  with  a  sense  of 
his  own  pettiness  as  compared  with  bodies  whose  greatness  sur- 
passed the  limits  of  his  imagination.  It  made  man  king  of  crea- 
tion, placed  him  in  the  centre  of  a  still  limited  world  of  which  the 
proportions  were  not  so  vast  that  he  could  not  travel  all  over  his 
domain.  If  he  could  tear  himself  from  the  domination  of  his  body, 
he  became  capable  of  communicating  with  the  visible  gods  who 
were  almost  within  his  reach  and  whom  he  might  hope  to  equal 
after  his  passage  here  below.  He  knew  himself  to  be  united  to 
them  by  an  identity  of  nature  which  alone  explained  how  he 
understood  them. 

"Quis  caelum  possit,  nisi  caeli  munere,  nosse 
Et  reperire  deum,  nisi  qui  pars  ipse  Dei  est  ? '  '84 

"Who  could  know  heaven  save  by  heavenly  grace,  or  find  God 
if  he  were  not  himself  a  part  of  God?" — words  of  the  Roman 
poet  who  echoes  Posidonius'  teaching. 


It  is  easy  to  understand  that  such  ideas  were  readily  adopted 
at  a  time  when  human  minds,  tired  of  inconclusive  disputes, 
despaired  of  ever  reaching  truth  by  their  own  strength.  The 
astral  mysticism  eloquently  preached  by  Posidonius  was  to  influ- 
ence all  the  later  Stoicism.  Seneca  in  particular,  in  the  numerous 
passages  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  misery  and  baseness  of  life 
in  the  body  and  celebrates  the  felicity  of  the  pure  souls  who  live 
among  the  stars,  shows  the  imprint  of  the  philosopher  of  Apamea. 
And  this  philosopher  also  exerted  a  far-reaching  action  beyond 
the  narrow  circle  of  the  school.  The  erudition  of  the  antiquarian 
Varro,  the  poems  of  Virgil  and  Manilius  and  the  biblical  exegesis 
of  Philo  the  Jew,  all  drew  on  him  for  inspiration.  But  the  author 
in  whom  we  can  best  discern  his  influence  is  his  pupil  Cicero, 
the  abundance  of  whose  writings  allows  us  to  follow  the  evolu- 
tion of  his  thought,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  whole  society 
of  his  time. 

It  is  beyond  doubt  that  Cicero  was  an  agnostic  for  the  greater 
part  of  his  life.  His  mind  found  satisfaction  in  the  scepticism 
of  the  New  Academy,  or  rather  he  adopted  towards  the  future  life 
the  received  attitude  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived,  where  the 
problem  of  the  soul 's  origin  and  destiny  was  regarded  as  not  only 
insoluble  but  also  idle,  as  unworthy  to  absorb  the  minds  of  men 

84  Manilius,  II,  115. 


32  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

who  should  devote  their  energies  to  the  service  of  the  state.  The 
question  of  the  cult  to  be  rendered  to  the  Manes  had  been  settled 
once  for  all  by  the  ancient  pontifical  law.  Old  Rome  distrusted 
speculations  as  to  the  Beyond  because  they  dangerously  diverted 
thought  from  actual  realities.  But  Cicero,  by  his  study  of  the 
writings  of  his  master  Posidonius  and  by  his  intercourse  with 
the  senator  Nigidius  Figulus,  a  fervent  adept  of  Pythagorism,85 
had  been  brought  into  contact  with  the  stream  of  mystical  ideas 
which  was  beginning  to  flow  through  the  West.  Gradually,  as  he 
grew  older  and  life  brought  him  disappointments,  his  thought 
was  more  attracted  to  religious  ideas.86  In  54,  when  he  had 
given  up  political  life,  he  composed  the  Republic,  an  imitation 
of  Plato's  work  on  the  same  subject.  As  Plato  had  introduced 
the  myth  of  Er  the  Armenian  at  the  end  of  his  work,  so  his 
Roman  imitator  concludes  with  the  puzzling  picture  of  ' '  Scipio  's 
Dream,"  where  the  destroyer  of  Carthage  receives  the  revela- 
tions of  the  conqueror  of  Zama.  The  hero,  from  the  height  of  the 
celestial  spheres,  expounds  that  doctrine  of  astral  immortality 
which  was  common  to  the  Pythagoreans  and  to  Posidonius.  It  is 
given  as  yet  only  as  a  dream,  a  vision  the  truth  of  which  is  in  no 
way  guaranteed.  But  in  45  B.  C.  Cicero  suffered  a  cruel  loss  in 
the  death  of  his  only  daughter  Tullia.  His  grief  persuaded  him 
that  this  beloved  being  still  lived  among  the  gods.  Even  while 
he  accused  himself  of  unreasonable  weakness,  he  ordered  that  not 
a  tomb  but  a  chapel  (fanum) ,  consecrating  her  apotheosis,  should 
be  raised  to  this  young  woman.  The  letters  he  wrote  at  this  time 
to  Atticus,  from  the  shores  of  the  Pomptine  Marshes,  in  the  soli- 
tude of  Astura,  apprise  us  of  his  most  intimate  feelings.  He  gave 
vent  to  his  sorrow  in  writing  a  Consolatio,  and  in  its  preserved 
fragments  we  see  him  strangely  impressed  by  the  Pythagorean 
doctrines:  he  speaks  of  the  soul,  exempt  from  all  matter,  as 
celestial  and  divine  and  therefore  eternal,  of  the  soul's  life  here 
below  as  a  penalty  inflicted  on  it  because  it  is  born  to  expiate 
anterior  crimes  (scelerum  luendorum  causa). 

Cicero's  sensitive  spirit,  troubled  by  the  perplexing  problem 
of  our  destiny,  did  not  turn  to  the  old  discredited  beliefs  but  to 
the  new  conceptions  which  a  mystical  philosophy  had  brought 
from  the  East.  Hortensius  and  the  Tusculans,  written  in  this 

ss  See  above,  p.  22. 

seLehrs,  Populdre  Aufs'dtze  aus  dem  Altertum,  1875,  p.  349  ss.;  Fowler, 
Religious  Experience  of  the  Roman  People,  p.  382  ss. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  33 

period  of  his  life,  show  us  the  empire  which  the  Neo-Stoicism  of 
his  master  and  the  Neo-Pythagorism  of  his  fellow-senator  then 
exercised  over  his  mind,  saddened  and  disillusioned  as  he  was, 
and  show  us  too  how  he  sought  consolation  for  the  private  and 
public  ills  which  were  overwhelming  him  in  the  luminous  doc- 
trine of  a  blissful  survival. 

This  spiritual  evolution  is  an  image  of  the  great  change  which 
was  about  to  take  place  in  the  Roman  world. 


Stoic  philosophy,  although  its  maxims  had  been  popularised 
by  education  and  literature,  was  almost  as  incapable  of  exercis- 
ing a  wide  influence  on  the  deep  masses  of  the  people  as  the 
esoteric  theosophy  revealed  in  the  aristocratic  conventicles  of  the 
Pythagoreans.  The  urban  "plebs,"  to  which  slavery  and  trade 
had  given  a  strong  admixture  of  Eastern  blood,  and  the  peasants 
of  the  rural  districts,  where  the  gaps  caused  by  depopulation 
were  filled  up  by  a  foreign  labour  supply,  were  beginning  at  the 
end  of  the  Republican  period  to  hear  new  dogmas  preached, 
dogmas  which  were  winning  an  ever  increasing  number  of  be- 
lievers. The  ancient  national  cults  of  Greece  and  Rome  aimed 
above  all  at  ensuring  civic  order  and  earthly  welfare,  and  paid 
small  regard  to  the  spiritual  perfection  of  individuals  and  their 
eternal  future.  But  now  exotic  cults  claimed  to  reveal  the  secret 
of  immortality  to  their  adepts.87  The  Oriental  mysteries,  propa- 
gated in  the  West,  united  in  the  promise  of  securing  holiness 
in  this  life  and  felicity  in  the  next,  while  they  imparted  to  their 
initiates  the  knowledge  of  certain  rites  and  required  submission 
to  certain  precepts.  Instead  of  the  fluctuating  and  disputable 
beliefs  of  philosophers  as  to  destiny  in  the  Beyond,  these  reli- 
gions gave  certainty  founded  on  divine  revelation  and  on  the 
faith  of  countless  generations  attached  to  them.  The  truth,  which 
the  mysticism  of  the  thinkers  looked  to  find  in  direct  communi- 
cation with  heaven,  was  here  warranted  by  a  venerable  tradition 
and  by  the  daily  manifestations  of  the  gods  adored.  The  belief 
in  life  beyond  the  grave,  which  had  in  ancient  paganism  been 
so  vague  and  melancholy,  was  transformed  into  confident  hope  in 
a  definite  beatitude.  Participation  in  the  occult  ceremonies  of  the 
sect  was  an  infallible  means  of  finding  salvation.  A  society  that 
was  weary  of  doubt  received  these  promises  eagerly,  and  the  old 

87C/.  my  Oriental  religions  in  Eoman  paganism,  Chicago,  1911,  p.  39  ss. 


34  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

beliefs  of  the  East  combined  with  an  eclectic  philosophy  to  give 
a  new  eschatology  to  the  Roman  Empire. 

The  salvation  ensured  by  the  mysteries  was  conceived  as  iden- 
tification with  the  god  venerated  in  them.  By  virtue  of  this 
union  the  initiate  was  reborn,  like  this  god,  to  new  life  after  he 
had  perished,  or,  like  him,  escaped  from  the  fatal  law  of  death 
which  weighs  on  humanity.  He  was  "deified"  or  "immor- 
talised, ' '  after  he  had  taken  part,  as  actor,  in  a  liturgical  drama 
reproducing  the  myth  of  the  god  whose  lot  was  thus  assimilated 
to  his  own.  Purifications,  lustrations  and  unctions,  participation 
in  a  sacred  banquet,  revelations,  apparitions  and  ecstasies — a 
complicated  series  of  ceremonies  and  instructions  helped  to  bring 
about  this  metamorphosis  of  the  faithful  whom  a  higher  power 
absorbed  or  penetrated  with  its  energy.  We  shall  return  to  this 
sacramental  operation  which  made  pious  souls  equal  to  the 
divinity.88 

There  is  another  point  on  which,  in  the  course  of  this  historical 
introduction,  we  must  dwell  a  little  longer,  namely,  the  evolu- 
tion undergone  by  the  conception  of  the  Beyond  taught  in  the 
different  mysteries  and  the  share  of  philosophy  in  the  transfor- 
mation. For  if  in  the  various  sects  the  liturgy  was  usually  pre- 
served with  scrupulous  fidelity,  its  theological  interpretation 
varied  considerably  as  time  passed.  In  paganism  much  doctrinal 
liberty  was  always  combined  with  respect  for  rites. 

Some  of  the  mysteries  often  gave  in  their  beginnings  a  rather 
coarse  idea  of  the  future  life,  and  the  pleasures  which  might 
be  enjoyed  therein  were  very  material.  The  ancient  Greek  con- 
ception, going  back  to  Orphism,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  that  of  a 
subterranean  kingdom  divided  into  two  contrasted  parts — Tar- 
tarus where  the  wicked,  plunged  in  a  dark  slough  or  subjected  to 
other  pains,  suffering  the  chastisement  of  their  faults,  on  the  one 
side;  on  the  other,  the  Elysian  Fields,  those  flowered,  luminous 
meadows,  gay  with  song  and  dance,  in  which  the  blessed  pursued 
their  favourite  occupations,  whether  they  were  allowed  to  dwell 
there  for  ever,  or  whether  they  awaited  there  the  hour  fixed  for 
their  rebirth  on  earth.89  This  eschatology,  which  had  become  the 
common  possession  of  the  Hellenes,  was  certainly  that  of  the 
mysteries  of  Greece  and  in  particular  of  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis. 
But  these  mysteries  were  never  more  than  local  religions :  how- 

ss  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  118  ss. 

so  See  Lecture  II,  p.  76;  VII,  p.  171. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  35 

ever  numerous  were  the  initiates  attracted  by  their  renown,  they 
were  bound  to  the  soil  where  they  were  born.  Thus  their  influence 
was  very  limited  in  the  Roman  period  and  cannot  be  compared 
with  that  of  the  universal  cults  which  were  propagated  through- 
out the  Mediterranean  world.  As  for  Orphism,  which  was  never 
connected  with  any  one  temple,  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  still 
constituted  an  actual  sect,  and  if  it  did,  it  certainly  spread  over 
a  very  narrow  field.  Its  influence  was  perpetuated  chiefly  because 
it  was  absorbed  by  Pythagorism. 

Among  the  mysteries  propagated  in  the  West,  the  most  ancient 
were  those  of  the  Thraco-Phrygian  gods,  Dionysos  and  Saba- 
zios,  who  were  indeed  looked  upon  as  identical.  We  know  that 
in  186  B.  C.  a  senatus  consultum  forbade  the  celebration  of  the 
Bacchanalia  in  Italy,  and  in  139  some  sectaries  of  Jupiter  Saba- 
zius,  who  identified  this  god  with  the  Jahve-Sabaoth  of  the 
Jews,  were  expelled  from  Rome  by  the  praetor  at  the  same  time 
as  the  "  Chaldeans. ' '  The  cult  practised  by  the  votaries  of  Bac- 
chus or  Liber  Pater,  whose  confraternities  were  maintained  until 
the  end  of  paganism,  differed  profoundly  from  the  Dionysos  wor- 
ship of  ancient  Greece :  a  number  of  Oriental  elements  had  been 
introduced  into  it ;  in  particular,  the  relations  between  Dionysos 
and  Osiris,  which  go  back  to  a  very  remote  period,  had  become 
singularly  close  in  Egypt.  However,  many  reliefs  on  tombstones 
and  the  celebrated  paintings  found  in  the  catacombs  of  Praetexta- 
tus  prove  that  the  cults  of  the  Thraco-Phrygian  gods  remained 
faithful  to  the  old  idea  of  a  future  life.  The  shade  went  down 
into  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  never  again  to  leave  them.  If  judged 
worthy,  it  took  part  in  an  eternal  banquet,  of  which  the  initiate 
received  a  foretaste  on  earth,  in  the  feasts  of  the  mysteries. 
Sacred  drunkenness,  a  divine  exaltation,  was  the  pledge  of  the 
joyous  intoxication  which  the  god  of  wine  would  grant  in  Hades 
to  the  faithful  who  had  united  themselves  to  him.90 

In  205,  towards  the  end  of  the  second  Punic  war,  the  cult  of 
Cybele,  the  Great  Mother  of  the  Gods,  and  of  Attis,  her  associate, 
was  transported  from  Pessinus  in  Phrygia  and  officially  adopted 
by  the  Roman  people.  The  great  feasts  of  this  religion  were  cele- 
brated in  March  about  the  equinox  and  commemorated  the  death 
and  resurrection  of  Attis,  the  emblem  of  vegetation,  which, 
after  it  has  withered,  flowers  again  in  the  spring.  The  faithful 
associated  their  own  destiny  with  the  lot  of  their  god :  like  him 

90  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  120;  VIII,  p.  204. 


36  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

they  would  be  reborn  to  a  new  life  after  they  had  died.  Their 
doctrines  on  this  point  were  certainly  transformed  as  time 
passed,  for  no  Oriental  cult  which  spread  in  the  "West  underwent 
more  evolution,  since  none  was  more  fundamentally  barbarous 
when  it  came  from  Asia.  Originally,  Cybele  was  the  goddess  of 
the  dead,  because  Mother  Earth  receives  them  into  her  bosom. 
Every  Phrygian  tomb  is  a  sanctuary  and  its  epitaph  a  dedica- 
tion: often  the  graves  are  consecrated  to  the  goddess  and  bear 
her  image  or  that  of  the  lion,  her  substitute.  Often  too  the  tomb- 
stone has  the  shape  of  a  door,  the  door  of  the  subterranean  world 
whither  the  dead  descend.  The  belief  seems  to  have  been  held 
that  the  deceased  were  absorbed  in  the  Great  Mother  who  had 
given  them  birth,  and  that  they  thus  participated  in  her  divinity. 
She  brought  forth  corn  and  grapes  for  men  and  thus  sustained 
them  day  by  day,  and  the  bread  and  wine,  taken  in  the  meal 
which  was  the  essential  act  of  the  initiation,  would  ensure  im- 
mortality to  those  who  were  of  the  mystery.  ' '  Thou  givest  us  the 
food  of  life  with  unfailing  constancy, ' '  says  a  prayer,  ' '  and  when 
our  soul  departs  we  will  take  refuge  in  thee.  Thus  all  that  thou 
givest,  always  falls  to  thee  again. '  '91 

Towards  the  end  of  the  Republic  the  mysteries  of  Isis  and 
Serapis,  which  had  come  from  Alexandria  and  had  already 
spread  through  the  south  of  Italy,  established  themselves  in  Rome 
and  maintained  themselves  there  in  spite  of  opposition  from  the 
senate.  Under  the  Empire,  the  Egyptian  religion  displayed  all 
the  pomp  of  its  liturgy  in  magnificent  temples  and  had  a  number 
of  votaries  in  every  province.  The  cult  of  Osiris,  of  which  that 
of  Serapis  was  a  form,  was  originally  a  cult  of  the  fields,  like 
that  of  Attis,  and  the  great  feast  which  its  adherents  celebrated 
in  autumn  recalls  the  Phrygian  spring  feasts.  The  death  of 
Osiris,  whose  body  had  been  torn  to  pieces  by  Seth,  was 
mourned;  and  when  Isis  had  found  the  scattered  fragments  of 
the  corpse,  joined  them  together  and  reanimated  it,  noisy  rejoic- 
ing followed  the  lamentation.  Like  the  initiates  of  Cybele  and 
Attis,  those  of  Isis  and  Serapis  were  associated  with  the  passion 
and  resurrection  of  their  god.  And,  in  the  same  way,  the  oldest 
conception  of  immortality  in  these  mysteries  was  that  the  de- 

91  <  <  Alimenta  vitae  tribuis  perpetua  fide, 

Et  cum  recesserit  anima  in  te  refugiemus, 
Ita,  quicquid  tribuis,  in  te  cuneta  recidunt. " 

(Anthol.  Lat.,  ed.  Riese,  I,  p.  27.) 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  37 

parted  went  down  into  the  infernal  regions,  where  a  man  became 
another  Serapis,  a  woman  another  Isis,  which  is  to  say  that  they 
were  assimilated  to  the  gods  who  had  granted  them  salvation.92 
This  is  why  on  numerous  funeral  reliefs  the  dead  man,  who 
has  become  a  hero  and  is  shown  lying  on  a  couch,  bears  on  his 
head  the  bushel  (modius)  which  is  the  attribute  of  Serapis. 
In  consequence,  however,  of  the  identification  of  this  god  with 
Dionysos,  the  joys  beyond  the  grave  are  also  represented  as  a 
feast  in  the  Elysian  Fields  at  which  the  great  master  of  banquets 
presides.93 

All  these  mysteries  conceive  immortality  as  a  descent  of  the 
dead  into  Hades.  For  them,  the  kingdom  of  the  dead  lies  in  the 
bosom  of  the  earth.  Those  who  have  been  initiated  will  there 
enjoy  a  felicity  made  up  of  purely  material  pleasures,  or  they 
will  be  identified  with  the  powers  who  reign  over  the  nether  world 
and  will  have  part  in  their  divine  life.  It  will  be  noticed  how 
closely  this  last  conception  approached  to  that  of  ancient 
Stoicism,  according  to  which  the  various  parts  of  the  human 
organism,  dissociated  by  death,  were  to  regain  their  integrity 
in  the  divine  elements  of  the  universe. 

Quite  another  doctrine  was  propagated  by  the  Syrian  cults 
and  the  Persian  mysteries  of  Mithras,  which  spread  in  the  West 
in  the  first  century  of  our  era.  These  religions  taught  that  the 
soul  of  the  just  man  does  not  go  below  the  ground  but  rises  to 
the  sky,  there  to  enjoy  divine  bliss  in  the  midst  of  the  stars  in 
the  eternal  light.  Only  the  wicked  were  condemned  to  roam  the 
earth's  surface,  or  were  dragged  by  the  demons  into  the  dusky 
depths  in  which  the  spirit  of  evil  reigned.  Opinions  differed  as 
to  the  region  of  heaven  in  which  the  souls  of  the  elect  dwelt.  The 
"Chaldeans,"  who  looked  upon  the  sun  as  the  master  and  the 
intelligence  of  the  universe,  made  him  the  author  of  human 
reason,  which  returned  to  him  after  it  had  left  the  body,  while 
for  the  priests  of  Mithras  the  spirit  rose,  by  way  of  the  planetary 
spheres,  to  the  summit  of  the  heavens.  We  will  have  to  examine 
later  the  different  forms  of  astral  immortality.94  But  you  will 
already  have  noticed  how  nearly  this  immortality,  as  formulated 
by  the  Iranian  and  Semitic  sects,  approximated  to  the  doctrine 
taught  by  Pythagorism  and  adopted  by  Neo-Stoicism. 

92  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  122. 

93  See  Lecture  VIII,  p.  202. 

94  See  Lecture  III,  p.  96  ss. 


38  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

This  meeting  of  the  two  doctrines  was  not  an  effect  of  chance. 
The  idea  that  souls  are  related  to  the  celestial  fires,  whence  they 
descend  at  birth  and  whither  they  reascend  at  death,  had  prob- 
ably been  borrowed  by  the  ancient  Pythagoreans  from  the  astral 
religions  of  the  East.  Recent  research  seems  to  have  established 
the  fact  of  its  Chaldeo-Persian  origin.  But  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers, according  to  their  wont,  defined  and  developed  this  idea 
in  an  original  way.  In  the  Hellenistic  period,  when  they  adopted 
astrology,  they  were  subject  for  the  second  time  to  the  ascend- 
ancy of  the  scientific  religion  of  the  "Chaldeans";  and,  in  their 
turn,  they  reacted  on  the  Oriental  cults  when  these  spread  in  the 
Graeco-Roman  world.  We  have  sure  evidence  that  the  mysteries 
of  Mithras  were,  in  particular,  strongly  affected  by  the  influence 
of  the  Pythagorean  sect,  which  was  itself  organised  like  a  kind 
of  mystery.  In  a  more  general  way,  philosophy  introduced  into 
the  mysteries  ethical  ideas  and,  instead  of  the  purely  ritualistic 
or  rather  magical  means  of  salvation,  some  moral  requirements 
became  necessary  to  earn  immortality. 

There  is  here  a  mass  of  actions  and  reactions  of  which  the 
details  escape  us;  but  we  can  form  some  idea  of  such  a  syncre- 
tism from  the  remains  of  the  theological  writings  attributed  to 
Hermes  Trismegistus,  from  the  writings,  that  is,  which  are 
supposed  to  contain  the  revelations  of  the  Egyptian  god  Thot. 
This  professedly  Egyptian  wisdom  includes  a  number  of  ideas 
and  definitions  which  are  characteristic  of  Posidonius  and  Neo- 
Pythagorism.  The  Greek  and  the  Egyptian  elements  are  so 
closely  associated  in  it  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  separate  the  one 
from  the  other.  We  find  another  example  of  the  same  mixture  in 
the  "  Chaldaic  Oracles, "  which  were  probably  composed  about  the 
year  200  of  our  era  and  which  became  one  of  the  sacred  books  of 
Neo-Platonism.  Unlike  the  Hermetic  writings,  this  collection  of 
verses  does  indeed  seem  to  have  belonged  to  a  sect  practising  an 
actual  cult :  its  greater  part  is  taken  up  with  mythology,  and  the 
fantastic  mysticism  of  the  East  is  more  prominent  here  than  in 
the  Hermetic  lore,  but  the  mind  of  the  compiler  of  these  revela- 
tions was  also  penetrated  by  the  ideas  which  the  Greek  masters 
had  widely  circulated. 

The  tenet  of  astral  immortality,  which  philosophy  shared  with 
the  cults  emanating  from  Syria  and  Persia,  imposed  itself  on  the 
ancient  world.  It  is  curious  to  notice  how  it  was  introduced  into 
the  theology  of  the  very  mysteries  to  which  it  was  at  first  for- 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  39 

eign:  Attis  ended  by  becoming  a  solar  god,  and  thenceforward 
it  was  in  the  heights  of  heaven  that  Cybele  was  united  to  the 
souls  she  had  prevented  from  wandering  in  darkness  and  had 
saved  from  hell.  The  priests  of  the  Alexandrian  divinities  were 
similarly  to  explain  that  the  dead  had  not  their  dwelling  in  the 
interior  of  our  globe,  but  that  the  "subterranean"  (woyetos)  king- 
dom of  Serapis  was  situated  beneath  the  earth,  that  is,  in  the 
lower  hemisphere  of  heaven,  bounded  by  the  line  of  the  horizon.95 

According  as  the  Oriental  religions  were  more  largely  propa- 
gated, faith  in  a  new  eschatology  spread  gradually  among  the 
people;  and  although  memories  and  survivals  of  the  old  belief 
in  the  life  of  the  dead  in  the  grave  and  the  shade's  descent  into 
the  infernal  depths  may  have  lingered,  the  doctrine  which  pre- 
dominated henceforward  was  that  of  celestial  immortality. 

The  distance  separating  the  age  of  Augustus  from  that  of  the 
Flavians  on  this  point  can  be  measured  by  reading  Plutarch's 
moral  works  (about  120  A.  D.).  A  constant  preoccupation  with 
religious  matters,  and  in  particular  a  learned  curiosity  as  to  the 
cults  of  the  East,  shows  itself  in  this  Greek  of  Chaeronea,  living 
in  a  country  which,  in  its  pride  in  its  own  past,  had  more  than 
any  other  resisted  the  invasion  of  exoticism.  Further,  the  eclectic 
philosopher  likes  to  insert  in  his  dissertations  myths  in  which, 
after  the  fashion  of  Plato,  he  expounds  the  lot  of  souls  in  the 
Beyond  and  their  struggle  to  rise  heavenwards.  An  attempt  has 
been  made  to  prove — wrongly,  I  think — that  he  is  here  inspired 
by  Posidonius.  These  apocalytic  visions,  which  claim  to  reveal 
truths  previously  ignored,  are  not  taken  from  that  well-known 
writer;  they  have  a  religious  imprint  which  betrays  sacerdotal 
influence,  and  the  philosophic  ideas  they  contain  are  those  which 
were  part  of  the  common  wisdom  of  the  Pythagoreans  and  the 
mysteries. 

There  doubtless  still  were  in  the  second  century  Stoics,  like 
the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius,  for  whom  the  future  life  was  a 
mere  hypothesis,  or  at  most  a  hope  (p.  14),  as  well  as  sceptics, 
like  Lucian  of  Samosata,  whose  irony  mocked  all  beliefs.  But 
gradually  their  number  diminished  and  the  echo  of  their  voices 
grew  feebler.  Faith  in  survival  deepened  as  present  life  came  to 
seem  a  burden  harder  and  harder  to  bear.  The  pessimistic  idea 
that  birth  is  a  chastisement  and  that  the  true  life  is  not  that 
passed  on  earth,  imposed  itself  in  proportion  to  the  growth  of 

95  See  Lecture  II,  p.  79. 


40  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

public  and  private  ills  and  to  the  aggravation  of  the  empire's 
social  and  moral  decline.  In  the  period  of  violence  and  devasta- 
tion which  occurred  in  the  third  century,  there  was  so  much 
undeserved  suffering,  there  were  so  many  unjust  failures  and 
unpunished  crimes,  that  men  took  refuge  in  the  expectation  of  a 
better  life  in  which  all  the  iniquity  of  this  world  would  be 
retrieved.  No  earthly  hope  then  brightened  life.  The  tyranny  of  a 
corrupt  bureaucracy  stifled  every  attempt  at  political  progress. 
Science  seemed  exhausted  and  no  longer  discovered  unknown 
truths ;  art  was  struck  with  sterility  of  invention  and  reproduced 
heavily  the  creations  of  the  past.  An  increasing  impoverish- 
ment and  a  general  insecurity  constantly  discouraged  the  spirit 
of  enterprise.  The  idea  spread  that  humanity  was  smitten  by 
incurable  decay,  that  society  was  on  the  road  to  dissolution  and 
the  end  of  the  world  was  impending.  All  these  causes  of  dis- 
couragement and  pessimism  must  be  remembered  in  order  to 
understand  the  dominance  of  the  old  idea,  then  so  often  repeated, 
that  a  bitter  necessity  constrains  the  spirit  of  man  to  enclose 
itself  in  matter,  and  that  death  is  a  liberation  which  delivers 
it  from  its  carnal  prison.  In  the  heavy  atmosphere  of  a  period 
of  oppression  and  powerlessness,  the  despondent  souls  of  men 
aspired  with  ineffable  ardour  to  the  radiant  spaces  of  heaven. 


The  mental  evolution  of  Roman  society  was  complete  when 
Neo-Platonism  took  upon  itself  the  office  of  directing  minds. 
The  powerful  mysticism  of  Plotinus  (205-262  A.  D.)  opened  up 
the  path  which  Greek  philosophy  was  to  follow  until  the  world 
of  antiquity  reached  its  end.  We  shall  not  undertake  to  notice 
in  this  place  the  discrepancies  of  the  latest  teachers  who  theorised 
about  the  destiny  of  souls.  In  the  course  of  these  lectures  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  quote  some  of  the  opinions  of  Porphyry,  the 
chief  disciple  of  Plotinus,  and  of  his  successor  Jamblichus,  who 
was,  like  himself,  a  Syrian.  "We  will  here  do  no  more  than  indicate 
broadly  what  distinguished  the  theories  of  this  school  from  those 
which  had  hitherto  been  dominant. 

The  system  generally  accepted,  by  the  mysteries  as  by  philoso- 
phy, was  a  pantheism  according  to  which  divine  energy  was 
immanent  in  the  universe  and  had  its  home  in  the  celestial 
spheres.  The  souls,  conceived  as  material,  could  in  consequence 
rise  to  the  stars  but  did  not  leave  the  world.  The  Neo-Pythag- 
oreans  themselves  had  not  had  a  very  firmly  established  doctrine 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  41 

on  this  point :  while  some  of  them  stated  that  reason  was  incor- 
poreal, others,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  24),  admitted  with  the  Stoics 
that  it  was  an  igneous  substance.  It  is  true  that  even  in  paganism 
the  appearance  can  be  discerned  of  the  belief  in  a  Most  High 
ptytcrros)  or  an  unknown  god  (vAyvwo-Tos) ,  whom  some  people 
supposed  to  dwell  above  the  starry  heavens,  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  world,  and  towards  whom  pious  spirits  could  rise.  The 
revivers  of  Platonic  idealism  asserted  the  transcendence  of  God 
and  the  spirituality  of  the  soul  more  strongly  and  clearly.  A 
whole  chapter  of  the  Enneades  of  Plotinus  is  taken  up  with  refut- 
ing those  who  held  the  soul  to  be  material.96  As  a  principle  of  life 
and  movement,  it  is  stated  to  be  immortal  by  its  very  essence, 
so  that  if  it  kept  its  purity  perfect,  it  would  find  after  its  passage 
here  below  eternal  felicity  in  the  intelligible  world. 

The  Neo-Platonists  preserved  the  idea,  which  had  previously 
been  admitted,  that  this  intellectual  essence  comes  down  to 
earth  through  the  planetary  spheres  and  the  atmosphere,  and 
that  as  it  sinks  in  the  luminous  ether  and  the  damp  air,  it  be- 
comes laden  with  particles  of  the  elements  through  which  it 
passes.  It  surrounds  itself  with  a  garment  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  with  a  vehicle  (oxnfjia)  which  thickens  as  it  gradually 
draws  near  us.97  This  subtle  body,  the  seat  of  the  passions  and 
of  feeling,  is  intermediary  between  the  spiritual  principle  which 
has  issued  from  God  and  the  flesh  in  which  it  is  to  enclose  itself, 
and  for  certain  philosophers  it  survives  death  and  accompanies 
the  soul  to  the  Beyond,  at  least  if  the  soul,  not  being  free  from 
earthly  admixture,  cannot  wholly  leave  the  world  of  sense,  and 
therefore  rises  only  to  the  planetary  circle  or  to  that  of  the  fixed 
stars. 

When  the  soul  has  suffered  even  more  from  the  taint  to  which 
its  contact  with  matter,  the  source  of  evil,  exposes  it,  it  is  doomed 
to  reincarnate  itself  in  a  new  body  and  again  to  undergo  the  trial 
of  this  life.  When  it  has  become  incurably  corrupt  and  burdened 
with  evil,  it  goes  down  into  the  depths  of  Hades. 

Following  Plato,  Plotinus  and  his  successors  have  adopted  the 
Pythagorean  doctrine  of  metempsychosis.  They  have  even  de- 
veloped it,  as  we  shall  see,98  together  with  the  whole  pessimistic 
and  ascetic  conception  of  life,  the  conception  which  looks  at 

96  Enn.,  IV,  7. 

97  See  Lecture  III,  p.  106;  VI,  p.  169. 

98  See  Lecture  VII,  p.  184  ss. 


42  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

birth  as  a  pain  and  a  fall,  a  temporary  subjection  to  a  body  from 
which  emancipation  must  be  sought.  It  is  only  after  this  libera- 
tion that  the  soul  can  reach  perfect  wisdom ;  it  must  no  longer  be 
troubled  by  the  senses  if  it  is  to  attain  to  the  end  of  existence, 
to  union  with  God. 

This  union  can  be  realised  even  during  this  life  in  moments  of 
ecstasy,  in  which  the  soul  rises  above  thought  and  gives  itself 
up  entirely  to  love  for  the  ineffable  Unity  in  which  it  is  absorbed. 
Like  many  other  mystics,  Plotinus  disdains  the  ceremonies  of 
positive  cults :  they  were  superfluous  to  the  sage  who  could  of 
himself  enter  into  communion  with  the  supreme  Being.  But 
even  his  disciple  Porphyry  conceded  a  greater  value  to  rites  and 
initiations.  If  they  were  powerless  to  lead  the  partakers  of 
mysteries  to  the  highest  degree  of  perfection,  their  effect  yet 
was  to  render  men  worthy  to  live  among  the  visible  gods  who 
people  heaven."  But  only  philosophical  wisdom  could  rise  to  the 
intelligible  world  and  the  Unknowable. 

The  principle  of  a  mystical  relation  between  man  and  the 
divinity  was  to  lead  Neo-Platonism  to  more  and  more  reverence 
for  religious  traditions.  For  it  was  held  that  in  the  past  the 
revelation  of  truth  had  been  granted  by  Heaven  not  only  to 
divine  Plato  and  the  sages  of  Greece,  but  to  all  the  founders  of 
barbarous  cults  and  authors  of  sacred  writings.  They  all  com- 
municated profound  teaching,  which  they  sometimes  hid  beneath 
the  veil  of  allegory.  Inspired  by  the  symbolism  of  the  Pythag- 
oreans, the  last  representatives  of  Greek  philosophy  claimed  to 
rediscover  the  whole  of  Platonic  metaphysics  and  the  Platonic 
doctrine  of  immortality  in  the  myths  and  rites  of  paganism. 
The  speeches  of  Julian  the  Apostate  on  the  Sun-King  and  the 
Mother  of  the  Gods  are  characteristic  examples  of  this  bold 
exegesis,  destitute  of  all  critical  and  even  all  common  sense,  which 
was  adopted  by  the  last  champions  of  the  old  beliefs. 


These  aberrations  of  Neo-Platonic  thought  must  not  hide  the 
school's  historical  importance  from  us,  any  more  than  the  ex- 
cesses of  the  superstitious  theurgy  which  invaded  it.  When  it 
revived  Plato's  idealism,  it  produced  a  lasting  change  in  the 
eschatological  ideas  which  prevailed  in  paganism,  and  it  deeply 
influenced  even  the  Christian  doctrines  of  immortality  held  since 

09  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  108;  VIII,  p.  212. 


HISTORICAL  INTRODUCTION  43 

the  fourth  century.  This  will  be  better  seen,  we  hope,  in  the 
course  of  these  lectures.100  It  may  be  said  that  the  conception  of 
the  lot  of  souls  which  reigned  at  the  end  of  antiquity  persisted  on 
the  whole  through  the  Middle  Ages — the  immaterial  spirits  of  the 
just  rising  through  the  planetary  spheres  to  the  Supreme  Being 
enthroned  above  the  zone  of  the  fixed  stars;  the  posthumous 
purification  of  those  whom  life  has  sullied  in  a  purgatory  inter- 
mediary between  heaven  and  hell;  the  descent  of  the  wicked 
into  the  depths  of  the  earth  where  they  suffered  eternal  chastise- 
ment. This  threefold  division  of  the  universe  and  of  souls  was 
largely  accepted  at  the  time  of  the  Empire's  decline  by  pagans 
and  by  Christians,  and  after  long  centuries  it  was  again  to  find 
magnificent  expression  in  Dante's  "Divine  Comedy."  Before  it 
could  be  destroyed  astronomy  had  to  destroy  the  whole  cosmog- 
raphy of  Posidonius  and  Ptolemy  on  which  it  was  based.  When 
the  earth  ceased  to  be  the  centre  of  the  universe,  the  one  fixed 
point  in  the  midst  of  the  moving  circles  of  the  skies,  and  became 
a  tiny  planet  turning  round  another  heavenly  body,  which  itself 
moved  in  the  immensity  of  space,  among  an  infinity  of  similar 
stars,  the  naive  conception  formed  by  the  ancients  of  the  journey 
of  souls  in  a  well-enclosed  world  could  no  longer  be  maintained. 
The  progress  of  science  discredited  the  convenient  solution  be- 
queathed to  scholasticism  by  antiquity,  and  left  us  in  the  presence 
of  a  mystery  of  which  the  pagan  mysteries  never  had  even  a 
suspicion. 

100  See  Lecture  II,  p.  90;  IV,  p.  109;  VIII,  p.  196  ss.,  206. 


I 

AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB 

WHEN  Cicero  in  his  Tusculans1  first  touches  on 
the  question  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  he 
begins  by  citing  in  its  support  the  fact  that 
belief  in  it  has  existed  since  earliest  antiquity.  He  states 
that  unless  the  first  Eomans  were  convinced  that  man  was 
not  reduced  to  nought,  when  he  left  this  life,  and  that  all 
feeling  was  not  extinguished  in  death,  there  could  be  no 
explanation  of  the  rules  of  the  old  pontifical  law  as  to 
funerals  and  burials,  rules  the  violation  of  which  was 
regarded  as  an  inexpiable  crime.  This  remark  is  that  of  a 
very  judicious  observer.  There  subsist  in  the  funeral  rites 
of  all  peoples,  in  the  ceremony  of  mourning  established  by 
the  religious  law  or  by  tradition,  customs  which  derive 
from  archaic  conceptions  of  life  beyond  the  tomb  and 
which  are  still  followed  although  their  original  meaning 
is  no  longer  understood.  Modern  learning  has  sometimes 
successfully  sought  to  elucidate  them,  borrowing  light 
from  the  practices  of  savage  peoples  and  from  European 
folk-lore.  We  will  not  enter  the  domain  of  these  re- 
searches, for  since  our  special  purpose  here  is  to  expound 
the  ideas  as  to  immortality  held  in  later  times,  we  have 
to  consider  only  the  beliefs  which  were  still  alive  in  that 
period.  A  false  interpretation  supplied  by  a  philosopher 
may  have  more  historical  value  for  us  than  the  true  ex- 
planation of  an  institution  which  had  lost  its  meaning. 

But  even  among  the  ideas  which  were  neither  obliter- 
ated nor  discredited,  conceptions  which  originated  at 
very  different  dates  have  to  be  distinguished. 

iCic,  Tusc,  I,  12,  §27. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  45 

The  doctrines  of  paganism,  like  the  soil  of  our  planet, 
are  formed  of  superimposed  strata.  When  we  dig  into 
them  we  discover  successive  layers  under  the  upper  de- 
posits of  recent  alluvia.  Nothing  was  suddenly  destroyed 
in  ancient  religions;  their  transformations  were  never 
revolutionary.  Faith  in  the  past  was  not  entirely  abolished 
when  new  ways  of  believing  were  formed.  Contradictory 
opinions  could  exist  side  by  side  for  a  long  time  without 
any  shock  being  caused  by  their  disagreement ;  and  it  was 
only  little  by  little  and  slowly  that  argument  excluded 
one  way  of  thinking  to  give  place  to  the  other,  while  there 
were  always  hardy  survivals  left,  both  in  thought  and  in 
customs.  Thus  the  beliefs  as  to  the  future  life  which  were 
current  under  the  Eoman  Empire  present  a  singular  mix- 
ture, coarse  ideas  going  back  to  the  prehistoric  period 
mingling  with  theories  imported  into  Italy  at  a  late  date. 

We  will  today  examine  the  oldest  of  all  the  ways  of 
considering  survival  in  the  Beyond :  life  in  the  tomb. 


Ethnology  has  proved  that  among  all  peoples  the  be- 
lief that  the  dead  continue  to  live  in  the  tomb  has  reigned, 
and  sometimes  still  reigns.  The  primitive  man,  discon- 
certed by  death,  cannot  persuade  himself  that  the  being 
who  moved,  felt,  willed,  as  he  does,  can  be  suddenly  de- 
prived of  all  his  faculties.  The  most  ancient  and  the  crud- 
est idea  is  that  the  corpse  itself  keeps  some  obscure  sensi- 
tiveness which  it  cannot  manifest.  It  is  imagined  to  be  in  a 
state  like  sleep.  The  vital  energy  which  animated  the  body 
is  still  attached  to  it  and  cannot  exist  without  it.  This 
belief  was  so  powerful  in  Egypt  that  it  inspired  a  whole 
section  of  the  funeral  ritual  and  called  forth  the  infinite 
care  that  was  taken  to  preserve  mummies.  Even  in  the 
West  it  survived  vaguely,  and  traces  of  it  might  still  be 
discovered  today.  Lucretius  combats  this  invincible  illu- 
sion of  men  who,  even  while  they  affirm  that  death  extin- 
guishes all  feeling,  keep  a  secret  uneasiness  as  to  the  suf- 
fering which  their  mortal  remains  may  undergo  and  are 


46  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

frightened  by  the  idea  that  their  bodies  may  be  eaten  by 
worms  or  carnivorous  animals.  They  cannot  separate 
themselves  from  this  prone  body,  which  they  believe  is 
still  their  self.  Why,  continues  the  poet,  would  it  be  more 
painful  to  be  the  prey  of  wild  beasts  than  to  be  burnt  by 
the  flame  of  the  pyre,  to  freeze  lying  on  the  icy  slab  of  the 
grave  or  to  be  crushed  by  the  weight  of  heaped-up  earth?2 
This  very  fear  that  the  earth  may  weigh  heavily  on  those 
who  are  deposited  in  the  grave  shows  itself  among  many 
peoples  who  inter  their  dead,  and  was  expressed  in  Rome 
by  a  formula  so  very  usual  that  it  was  recalled  in  epitaphs 
by  initials  only:  "S(it)  t(ibi)  t(erra)  l(evis),"  "May 
earth  be  light  for  thee."  Until  the  Empire  Stoic  philoso- 
phers could  be  found  who  upheld  that  the  soul  endures 
only  for  the  time  for  which  the  body  is  preserved.3 

But  experience  proved  that  the  corpse  decomposed 
rapidly  in  the  soil,  all  that  remained  of  it  being  a  skeleton 
bereft  of  the  organs  of  sensation.  When  the  custom  of  in- 
cineration, followed  in  Italy  from  the  prehistoric  period, 
became  practically  general  in  Rome,  the  destruction  of  the 
body  took  place  regularly  before  the  eyes  of  those  pres- 
ent. Thus  men  reached  the  belief  that  those  near  and  dear 
to  them,  whom  they  sometimes  saw  again  in  their  dreams 
or  seemed  to  feel  beside  them,  who  were  kept  alive  at 
least  in  memory,  differed  from  the  beings  of  flesh  and 
bones  whom  they  had  known.  From  those  material  indi- 
viduals subtle  elements  detached  themselves,  filled  with 
a  mysterious  force  which  subsisted  when  the  human 
organism  had  crumbled  to  dust  or  been  reduced  to  ashes. 
It  was  this  same  principle  which  temporarily  departed 
from  persons  who  lost  consciousness  in  a  faint  or  a 
lethargy.  If  this  light  essence  did  not  leave  a  dying  man 
at  the  moment  of  his  death — whether  or  not  it  could 
escape  from  his  body  immediately  was  indeed  uncertain 
— it  was  set  free  by  the  funeral  fire,4  but  it  still  inhabited 

2  Lucretius,  III,  890  ss. 

3  Servius,  Aen.,  Ill,  68. 

4  Servius,  ibid. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  47 

the  tomb  in  which  his  remains  rested.  The  idea  that 
it  was  somehow  attached  to  his  remains  had  taken  root 
in  men's  minds,  and  even  literature  bears  witness  to 
the  persistence  of  this  deeply  implanted  popular  belief. 
Propertius,5  when  cursing  a  woman,  desires  that  "her 
Manes  may  not  be  able  to  settle  near  her  ashes.' '  And  at 
Liternum  in  Campania,  where  Scipio  Africanus  caused 
himself  to  be  buried  because,  as  he  said,  he  did  not  wish 
to  leave  even  his  bones  to  his  ungrateful  country,  the 
grotto  was  shown  where  he  rested  and  where,  so  men 
believed,6  ' '  a  serpent  kept  guard  over  his  Manes. ' ' 

This  primitive  conception  of  the  persistence  of  a  latent 
life  in  the  cold  and  rigid  corpse  or  of  its  passage  to  a 
vaporous  being  like  the  body,  is  connected  with  the  belief 
that  the  dead  retain  all  the  needs  and  feelings  which  were 
previously  theirs.  The  funeral  cult,  celebrated  at  the 
tomb,  is  born  of  this  belief.  It  proceeds  from  fear  as  much 
as  from  piety,  for  the  dead  are  prone  to  resentment  and 
quick  in  vengeance.  The  unknown  force  which  inhabits 
them,  the  mysterious  power  which  causes  them  to  act, 
inspired  great  awe.  If  the  natural  course  of  their  exist- 
ence had  been  interrupted,  especially  if  they  had  died 
before  their  time,  they  were  suspected  of  being  victims 
of  some  mischievous  enchantment;  their  sickness  was 
looked  upon  as  an  invasion  of  maleficent  spirits  pro- 
voked by  spells.  The  wrath  of  those  who  had  thus  been 
torn  from  their  homes  and  their  wonted  way  of  life  was 
to  be  dreaded.  Loud  outbursts  of  grief  followed  by  pro- 
longed manifestations  of  mourning  must  prove  to  them, 
in  the  first  place,  that  they  were  truly  lamented  and  that 
no  attempt  had  been  made  to  get  rid  of  them.  Then,  in 
their  new  abode  to  which  they  were  conveyed,  they  must 
be  ensured  a  bearable  existence,  in  order  that  they  might 
remain  therein  quietly  and  not  trouble  their  families  nor 
punish,  by  some  intrusion,  those  who  neglected  them.  So- 
licitude for  the  beloved,  the  desire  to  prevent  their  suffer- 

e  Propertius,  IV,  5,3:  "  Nee  sedeant  cineri  Manes. ' '  Cf.  Lucan,  IX,  2. 
6  Pliny,  H.  N.,  XVI,  44,  $234;  cf.  Livy,  XXXVIII,  53. 


48  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

ing,  the  hope  of  obtaining  their  protection,  partly  account 
for  the  origin  and  maintenance  of  these  practices,  bnt  they 
were  above  all  inspired  by  the  terror  which  spirits  called 
forth,  as  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  they  were  the  same  for 
all  the  departed  without  distinction,  for  those  who  had 
been  loved  and  those  who  had  been  hated. 

The  tomb  is  the  house  of  the  dead.  This  is  an  idea 
common  to  the  whole  ancient  world,  going  back  in  Italy 
beyond  the  foundation  of  Rome.  The  prehistoric  ceme- 
teries of  the  first  iron  age  have  yielded  a  number  of 
cinerary  urns  exactly  reproducing  the  various  types  of 
huts  which  sheltered  the  tribes  who  then  peopled  the 
peninsula.  The  burial  places  of  the  Etruscans  are  often 
on  the  plan  of  their  dwellings,  and  Roman  epitaphs  leave 
no  doubt  as  to  the  persistence  of  the  conviction  that  the 
dead  inhabit  the  tomb.  The  diffusion  of  Oriental  cults 
revived  archaic  beliefs  on  this  point  as  on  many  others. 
The  name  "eternal  house"  {domus  aetema),  borrowed 
from  the  Egyptians  and  the  Semites,  often  occurs  in  fu- 
neral inscriptions  of  the  imperial  period.7  One  text  even 
specifies  that  this  is  "the  eternal  house  in  which  future 
life  must  be  passed."8  The  tomb  is  thus  no  mere  passage 
through  which  the  soul  goes  on  its  way  to  another  region 
of  the  world;  it  is  a  lasting  residence.  "This,"  says  an 
inscription,  "is  our  certain  dwelling,  the  one  which  we 
must  inhabit."9  In  the  Aeneid,  &  cenotaph  is  raised  to 
Polydorus,  whose  body  had  been  lost,  and  his  "soul"  is 
installed  there  by  a  funeral  ceremony,10  for  the  shade 
which  has  no  sepulchre  wanders,  as  we  shall  see,  about  the 
earth.  But  when  a  fine  monument  is  given  to  a  dead  man, 
he  is  happy  to  be  able  to  offer  hospitality  there  to  passers- 
by  and  invites  them  to  stay  on  their  way.  Sometimes  he  is 

7  Cf.  my  Oriental  religions,  p.  240. 

8  OIL,  I,  1108:  "Domum  aeternam  ubi  aevum  degerent. " 

9  Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1555:  "Haee  certa  est  domus,  haec  est  colenda 
nobis. ' ' 

loVirg.,  Aen.,  Ill,  67:  "Animam  sepulcro  condimus. ' '  Cf.  Pliny,  Epist., 
Ill,  27,  12:  "Kite  conditis  Manibus." 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  49 

imagined  as  in  a  bedchamber,  where  he  sleeps  an  endless 
sleep,11  but  this  is  not  the  primitive  nor  the  dominant  idea. 
This  idea,  on  the  contrary,  was  that  his  rest  was  at  least 
not  unbroken,  since  he  had  many  requirements.  It  was 
necessary  not  only  to  ensure  him  a  roof  but  also  to  pro- 
vide for  his  support,  for  he  had  the  same  needs  and  tastes 
beneath  the  ground  as  he  had  upon  it.  Therefore  the 
clothes  which  covered  him,  the  jewels  which  adorned  him, 
the  earthen  or  bronze  vessels  which  decked  his  table,  the 
lamps  which  afforded  him  light,  would  be  placed  beside 
him.  If  he  were  a  warrior  he  would  be  given  the  arms  he 
bore,  if  a  craftsman  the  tools  he  used;  a  woman  would 
have  the  articles  necessary  to  her  toilet,  a  child  the  toys 
which  amused  him ;  and  the  amulets,  by  the  help  of  which 
all  that  was  maleficent  would  be  kept  away,  were  not  for- 
gotten. "It  is  against  common  sense,"  says  Trimalchio 
in  Petronius'  romance,12  "to  deck  the  house  of  the  living 
and  not  to  give  the  same  care  to  the  house  which  we  must 
inhabit  for  a  longer  time. ' '  In  fact,  the  larger  number  of 
the  articles  of  furniture  and  household  use  preserved  in 
our  museums  come  from  tombs,  which,  in  the  climate  of 
Egypt,  have  sometimes  been  able  to  yield  up  to  us,  intact, 
some  precious  volume  intended  for  a  mummy's  bedside 
book. 

But  the  tombs  have  kept  for  us  only  a  small  part  of  the 
offerings  made  to  those  who  were  leaving  this  world,  for 
often  their  wardrobe  and  implements  were  delivered  with 
them  to  the  flame  of  the  pyre  in  the  belief  that  somehow 
they  would  find  them  again  in  the  Beyond.  Lucian  relates 
that  a  husband  loved  his  wife  so  dearly  that  at  her  death 
he  caused  all  the  ornaments  and  the  clothes  which  she 
liked  to  wear  to  be  buried  with  her.  But  seven  days  after 
her  death,  as,  stretched  on  a  couch,  he  was  silently  read- 
ing Plato's  Phaedo,  seeking  therein  solace  for  his  grief, 
his  wife  appeared,  seated  herself  beside  him,  and  re- 

11  See  above,  Introd.,  p.  10;  Lecture  VIII,  p.  192. 

12  Petronius,  71 :  "  Valde  enim  f  alsum  vivo  quidem  domos  cultas  esse,  non 
curari  earn  ubi  diutius  nobis  habitandum  est. ' ' 


50  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

proached  Mm  for  not  having  added  to  his  offering  one  of 
her  gilt  slippers  which  had  been  left  behind  a  chest. 
The  husband  found  it  there,  and  hastened  to  burn  it  in 
order  that  the  poor  woman  might  no  longer  remain  half 
barefooted.13 

Above  all,  the  dead  must  be  offered  food,  for  the  shade, 
like  the  human  body  which  it  replaces,  needs  nourishment 
for  its  subsistence.  Its  feeble  and  precarious  life  is  quick- 
ened and  prolonged  only  if  it  be  constantly  sustained.  The 
dead  are  hungry;  above  all  they  are  thirsty.  Those  whose 
humours  have  dried,  whose  mouths  have  withered,  are 
tortured  by  the  need  to  refresh  their  parched  lips.  It 
therefore  is  not  enough  to  place  in  the  tombs  the  drinks 
and  dishes,  the  remains  of  which  have  often  been  found 
beside  skeletons ;  by  periodic  sacrifices  the  Manes  must  be 
supplied  with  fresh  food  also.  If  they  are  left  without 
nourishment  they  languish,  weak  as  a  fasting  man,  almost 
unconscious,  and  in  the  end  they  would  actually  die  of 
starvation.  This  is  why  the  flesh  of  victims  was,  in  funeral 
sacrifices,  wholly  destroyed  by  fire,  none  of  it  being 
reserved  for  those  present.  People  always  retained  the 
conviction  that  the  offerings  burnt  on  the  altar  or  the 
libations  poured  into  the  grave  were  consumed  by  him 
for  whom  they  were  intended.  Often  there  is  in  the  tomb- 
stone a  circular  cavity,  the  bottom  of  which  is  pierced 
with  holes ;  the  liquid  poured  into  it  went  through  the  per- 
forated slab  and  was  led  by  a  tube  to  the  urn  which  held 
the  calcinated  bones.  It  is  comprehensible  that  an  unbe- 
liever protested  against  this  practice  in  his  epitaph.  "By 
wetting  my  ashes  with  wine  thou  wilt  make  mud,"  he 
says, ' '  and  I  shall  not  drink,  when  I  am  dead. '  n4  But  how 
many  other  texts  there  are  which  show  the  persistence  of 
the  ancient  ideas!  " Passer-by,' '  says  a  Roman  inscrip- 
tion, "the  bones  of  a  man  pray  thee  not  to  soil  the  monu- 

isLucian,  Philopseudes,  27;  cf.  Dessau,  Inscr.  set,  8379,  1.  50  ss. 
14  Kaibel,   Epigr.    Graeca,   646z=Dessau,   Inscr.   sel.,    8156 ;    cf.   Lueian, 
Be  luctu,  19. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  51 

ment  which  covers  them ;  but  if  thou  be  benevolent  pour 
wine  into  the  cup,  drink  and  give  me  thereof. ' ,15 

If  the  dead  ask  for  fresh  water,  with  which  to  quench 
their  insatiable  thirst,  they  are  above  all  eager  for  the 
warm  blood  of  victims.  This  sacrifice  to  the  dead  was  at 
first  often  a  human  sacrifice  of  slaves  or  prisoners,  and 
barbarous  immolations  of  this  kind  had  not  entirely 
disappeared  even  in  the  historic  period.  "When,  after 
the  taking  of  Perugia,  Octavius,  on  the  Ides  of  March 
(that  is,  on  the  anniversary  of  the  slaying  of  Julius 
Caesar),  caused  three  hundred  notables  of  the  town  to  be 
slaughtered  on  Caesar's  altar,16  this  collective  murder, 
inspired  by  political  hatred,  perpetuated  an  old  religious 
tradition.  Fights  of  gladiators,  whose  blood  drenched  the 
soil,  originally  formed  part  of  the  funeral  ceremonies  by 
which  the  last  duty  was  paid  to  the  remains  of  an  illus- 
trious personage.  It  is  said  that  these  sacrifices  were 
intended  to  provide  him  who  had  gone  to  the  other  world 
with  servants  and  companions,  as  the  offering  of  a  horse 
gave  him  a  steed,  or  else  that,  in  case  of  violent  death, 
they  were  meant  to  appease  the  shade  of  a  victim  who 
claimed  vengeance.  And  doubtless  these  ideas,  which 
correspond  to  conceptions  already  evolved,  contributed 
to  keeping  this  cruel  custom  in  force.  But  originally  the 
object  of  this  sacrifice,  as  of  the  sacrifice  of  animals,  was 
essentially  to  ensure  the  duration  of  the  undefinable  some- 
thing which  still  inhabited  the  tomb. 

Among  all  the  peoples  of  antiquity  the  blood  was 
looked  upon  as  the  seat  of  life  ;17  the  vapour  which  rose 
from  the  warm  red  liquid,  flowing  from  a  wound,  was  the 
soul  escaping  therewith  from  the  body;  and  therefore 
when  blood  was  sprinkled  on  the  soil  which  covered  the 
remains  of  a  relative  or  a  friend,  a  new  vitality  was  given 
to  his  shade.  With  the  same  motive  women  were  wont  to 
scratch  their  faces  with  their  nails  in  sign  of  mourning.18 

is  Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  838=Dessau,  op.  cit.,  8204. 

is  Sueton.,  Aug.,  15.  "  Cf.  p.  52,  n.  20,  and  Lecture  IV,  p.  118. 

is  Servius,  Aen.,  Ill,  67. 


52  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

This  ancient  conviction  that  fresh  blood  was  indispen- 
sable to  the  dead,  was  maintained  in  some  countries  with 
surprising  tenacity.  In  Syria,  as  late  as  the  seventh  cen- 
tury of  our  era,  Christians  insisted,  in  spite  of  episcopal 
objurgations,  on  immolating  bulls  and  sheep  on  tombs,  and 
in  Armenia,  where  these  practices  were  sanctioned  by  the 
national  clergy,  the  faithful  remained  persuaded  that  the 
dead  found  no  happiness  in  the  other  life  unless  the  blood 
of  victims  had  been  made  to  flow  for  them  on  the  days 
fixed  by  tradition.19 

Other  libations  performed  in  the  funeral  rites  of  the 
Greeks,  as  of  the  Romans,  were  intended  to  produce  the 
same  effect,  the  libations,  namely,  of  wine,  milk  and 
honey.  The  use  of  wine  has  been  explained  as  that  of  a 
substitute  for  blood,  as  wine  is  red.  Servius  even  inter- 
prets the  purple  flowers  which  Aeneas  threw  on  the  tomb 
of  his  father  Anchises  by  the  same  association  of  ideas, 
as  an  u  imitation  of  blood  in  which  is  the  seat  of  life. ' ,20 
Many  proofs  could  be  cited  of  the  fact  that  wine  has  often 
taken  the  place  of  the  liquid  which  flows  in  our  veins,  but 
its  use  in  connection  with  the  dead  can  be  explained  also 
by  its  own  virtue.  It  is  the  marvellous  liquid  which  gives 
divine  drunkenness  and  which  in  the  mysteries  ensures 
immortality  to  such  as  are,  thanks  to  this  sacred  draught, 
possessed  by  Bacchus.21  In  the  same  way  it  vivifies  the 
Manes  to  whom  it  is  poured  out.  Similarly  melikraton,  a 
mixture  of  milk  and  honey,  is  the  food  of  the  gods,  and 
when  the  dead  absorb  it,  they  too  become  immortal. 

Such  is  the  first  meaning  of  these  offerings,  one  which 
was  never  quite  forgotten.  Their  object  is  the  infusion  of 
new  vigour  into  the  enfeebled  shades  who  slumber  in  the 
tomb.  This  intention  can  also  be  discerned  in  the  fact  that 
the  same  offerings  are  used  in  magic,  which  often  pre- 
served ideas  abolished  or  superseded  in  religion.  In  order 

19  Cf.  Comptes-rendus  Acad,  des  Inscr.,  1918,  p.  284  s. 

20  Servius,  Aen.,  V,  79:  "Ad  sanguinis  imitationem,  in  quo  est  sedes 
animae."  Cf.  II,  532. 

2i  See  above,  Introd.,  p.  35,  and  Lecture  VIII,  p.  204. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  53 

to  evoke  the  phantoms,  the  necromancers  dug  a  ditch  and 
poured  blood,  wine,  milk  and  honey  into  it.  These  liquids 
had  an  exciting  effect  on  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  arousing 
them  from  their  torpor,  and  the  wizard  took  advantage  of 
it  to  question  them. 

Precautions  lest  the  dead  should  ever  suffer  from  lack 
of  nourishment  were  multiplied.  In  order  that  they  might 
be  fed  on  other  days  than  those  of  sacrifices,  all  over  the 
ancient  world  it  was  customary  to  place  food  on  their 
tombs— eggs,  bread,  beans,  lentils,  salt,  flour,  with  wine. 
Hungry  vagrants  did  not  always  respect  their  offerings 
but  would  help  themselves  to  the  proffered  viands. 


The  institution  which  is  most  characterised  by  the  per- 
sistence of  the  ancient  ideas  of  life  in  the  tomb  is  how- 
ever that  of  the  funeral  banquets.  These  family  repasts, 
which  had  previously  been  celebrated  among  the  Etrus- 
cans, took  place  in  Rome  on  the  grave  immediately  after 
the  funeral  (silicernium)  and  were  repeated  on  the  ninth 
day  following  (cena  novemdialis).  In  Greece  and  in  the 
East  the  ceremony  took  place  thrice,  on  the  third,  ninth 
and  thirtieth  or  on  the  third,  seventh  and  fortieth  day. 
Everywhere  it  was  subsequently  renewed  every  year  on 
the  anniversary  of  the  death  and  on  several  other  fixed 
dates,  as  on  that  of  the  Rosalia  in  May,  on  which  it  was 
customary  to  decorate  the  tombs  with  roses.  Memorial 
monuments  of  some  importance  are  often  found  to  in- 
clude, beside  the  burial  chamber,  a  dining-room  (triclin- 
ium) and  even  a  kitchen  (culina).  The  importance 
attached  to  these  meals  is  proved  by  several  wills  which 
have  been  preserved,  and  which  make  considerable  endow- 
ments to  ensure  their  perpetuity.  For  instance,  at  Ra- 
venna a  son  bequeaths  a  sum  of  money  to  a  college  on 
condition  that  its  members  annually  scatter  roses  on  his 
father's  grave  and  feast  there  on  the  Ides  of  July.22 
When  Aurelius  Vitalio  had  built  at  Praeneste  a  family 

22  CIL,  XI,  132=Dessau,  7235. 


54  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

tomb,  surmounted  by  a  room  with  a  terrace,  lie  wrote  a 
letter  in  incorrect  Latin  to  the  brothers  of  the  society  to 
which  he  belonged :  "I  ask  you,  my  companions,  to  refresh 
yourselves  here  without  quarrelling. ' ,23  An  African  set- 
tled in  Rome  similarly  writes  to  his  relatives  and  friends, 
< '  Come  here  in  good  health  for  the  feast,  and  rejoice 
together."24  And  in  Gaul  a  will  commands  that  the  burial 
vault  be  furnished  and  receive  a  bed  with  coverings  and 
cushions  for  the  guests  who  have  to  meet  on  the  memorial 
days.25 

These  funeral  repasts  go  back  to  a  prehistoric  antiq- 
uity. They  are  found  in  India  and  in  Persia  as  well  as 
among  the  European  peoples.  They  are  doubtless  as 
ancient  as  wedding  and  festal  banquets.  Among  the  Egyp- 
tians and  the  Etruscans  it  was  even  customary  to  place  the 
representation  of  a  perpetual  feast  on  the  walls  of  a  tomb 
in  order  to  secure  to  the  dead  person  the  relief  it  gave. 
The  shade  of  a  guest  might  well  be  pleased  with  the  like- 
ness of  dishes. 

It  was  believed  that  at  funeral  feasts  the  Manes  of 
ancestors  came  to  sit  among  the  guests  and  enjoyed  with 
them  the  abundance  of  the  food  and  wines.  Lucian  tells  of 
repasts  of  this  kind,  which  he  witnessed  in  Egypt,  at  which 
the  dried  mummy  was  invited  to  eat  and  drink  at  the  table 
of  his  kin.26  In  Greece,  even  in  the  Roman  period,  those 
present  at  the  feast  used  to  summon  the  dead  to  it  by 
name.  An  epitaph  of  Narbonne  jokingly  expresses  the 
vulgar  idea  as  to  the  participation  of  the  deceased  in  the 
banquet:  "I  drink  and  drink  again,  in  this  monument,,, 
says  the  dead  man,  "the  more  eagerly  because  I  am 
obliged  to  sleep  and  to  dwell  here. ' m 

23CIL,  XIV,  3323=Dessau,  8090:  "Hoc  peto  aego  a  bobis  unibersis 
sodalibus  ut  sene  bile  ref  rigeretis. ' ' 

24  CIL,  VI,  26554=zDessau,  8139. 

25  Dessau,  8379. 

26  Lucian,  Be  luctu,  37. 

27  Dessau,  8154=CIL,  XII,  5102=Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  788: 

' '  [Eo]  cupidius  perpoto  in  monumento  meo, 
Quod  dormiendum  et  permanendum  heic  est  mihi. ' ' 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  55 

Nothing  is  further  from  our  spiritual  ideas  as  to  the 
holiness  of  graveyards  than  the  conviviality  occasioned 
by  the  cult  of  the  departed;  among  the  guests  crowned 
with  flowers,  the  drinks  went  round  (circumpotatio)  and 
soon  produced  a  noisy  intoxication.  Do  not  think  this  was 
an  abuse  due  to  a  relaxation  of  morals  and  which  came 
into  being  in  later  times.  The  character  of  these  funeral 
banquets  was  such  from  the  beginning,  and  such  it  has 
remained  down  to  modern  times  in  many  countries.  You 
all  know  the  practice  of  the  Irish  "wake"  which  has  been 
preserved  even  in  the  United  States. 

For  it  was  long  believed  that  the  dead  had  their  part 
in  the  merriness  and  inebriation  of  the  companions  at 
table  and  were  thus  consoled  for  the  sadness  of  their  lot. 
"Thou  callest,"  says  Tertullian,28  "the  dead  careless 
(securos)  when  thou  goest  to  the  tombs  with  food  and 
delicacies,  but  thy  real  purpose  is  to  make  offerings  to 
thyself,  and  thou  returnest  home  tipsy. ' '  And  indeed,  as 
we  shall  see,29  these  feasts  were  no  longer  of  profit  to  the 
dead  only  but  to  the  living  also,  because  there  came  to  be 
a  confusion  between  them  and  the  Bacchic  communions  in 
which  wine  was  a  drink  of  immortality. 

No  religious  ceremony  was  more  universally  per- 
formed in  the  most  diverse  regions  of  the  Empire  than 
this  cult  of  the  grave.  At  every  hour  of  every  day  families 
met  in  some  tomb  to  celebrate  there  an  anniversary  by 
eating  the  funeral  meal.  Peoples  remained  strongly  at- 
tached to  practices  the  omission  of  which  would  have 
seemed  to  them  dangerous  as  well  as  impious,  for  the 
spirits  of  the  dead  were  powerful  and  vindictive. 

It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  these  practices  per- 
sisted in  the  Christian  era  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the 
clergy  to  suppress  them.  St.  Augustine  reprimands  those 
who,  like  pagans,  "drink  intemperately  above  the  dead" 
— these  are  his  words — "and  who,  while  serving  meals  to 

28  J)e  testim.  animae,  4. 

29  See  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  203  s. 


56  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

corpses,  bury  themselves  with  these  buried  bodies,  mak- 
ing a  religion  of  their  greed  and  their  drunkenness.,,3 

In  the  East,  however,  ecclesiastical  authority  tolerated 
a  custom  which  it  could  not  uproot,  contenting  itself  with 
forbidding  the  abuse  of  wine  and  recommending  a  mod- 
eration the  absence  of  which  might  often  be  deplored. 
Ecclesiastical  authority  also  insisted  that  a  part  of  the 
feast  should  be  given  to  the  poor,  thus  giving  a  charitable 
character  to  the  old  pagan  practice.31  Therefore  in  many 
countries,  and  especially  in  Greece  and  in  the  Balkans,  the 
habit  has  survived  to  this  day,  not  only  of  placing  food  on 
tombs,  but  also  of  eating  there  on  certain  anniversaries, 
with  the  idea  that  the  dead  in  some  mysterious  way  share 
and  enjoy  the  meal. 

***** 

In  Rome,  in  historical  times,  the  funeral  repast  might 
be  taken  not  at  the  tomb  but  in  the  house.  Among  the 
feasts  celebrated  by  the  confraternities  in  honour  of  some 
dead  benefactor,  on  the  dates  fixed  by  his  last  will,  many 
were  held  in  the  meeting-place  of  the  guild.  But  the  be- 
lief continued  in  the  real  presence  of  him  whose  ' '  spirit 
was  honoured,"32  and  whose  statue  or  picture  often 
adorned  the  banqueting  hall. 

From  the  earliest  period,  the  spirit  of  the  dead  was  in- 
deed not  regarded  as  inseparable  from  his  remains  or  as 
a  recluse  cloistered  in  the  tomb.  He  dwelt  there  but  could 
issue  thence,  although  for  long  it  was  believed  that  he 
could  not  go  far  away  but  remained  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  burial  place.  He  was  brought  back  to  it  by  the 
necessity  of  taking  food,  which  was  no  less  indispensable 
to  him  than  to  men.  He  returned,  therefore,  to  it,  as  a 
dweller  returns  to  his  home,  to  repair  his  energies  and 
to  rest.  This  idea  that  the  soul  wandered  around  its  "eter- 

30  Augustine,  Be  mor.  eccles.,  34 :  "  Qui  luxuriosissime  super  mortuos 
bibant  et  epulas  cadaveribus  exhibentes  super  sepultos  se  ipsos  sepeliant  et 
voracitates  ebrietatesque  suas  deputent  religioni. " 

3i  Constitutiones  Apostol.,  VIII,  42. 

32  Dessau,  8375:  "Colant  spiritum  meum." 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  57 

nal  house"  often  caused  pains  to  be  taken  to  surround 
this  house  with  a  garden.  Sometimes  such  a  garden  was 
planted  with  a  practical  object:  it  was  a  vineyard,  an 
orchard  or  a  rose-garden  which  supplied  the  wine,  fruit 
or  flowers  necessary  for  the  offerings  to  the  dead.33  But 
elsewhere  a  mere  pleasure-garden,  with  shady  groves, 
bowers,  pavilions  and  sparkling  fountains,  surrounded 
the  burial  place.  The  care  which  the  living  took  to  fix, 
by  their  will,  its  extent  and  its  planting  is  a  measure  of 
the  intensity  of  their  conviction  that  their  shade  would 
take  pleasure  in  refreshing  itself  in  this  quiet  haunt. 
There,  about  the  tomb,  it  would  enjoy  the  delights  which 
would  afterwards  be  transported  to  the  Elysian  Fields, 
as  we  shall  see  later. 

The  cult  of  the  grave  has  not  ceased  in  these  days ;  the 
ancient  rites  have  not  been  discontinued.  Tombstones  are 
still  surrounded  with  flowers;  they  are  decked  with 
wreaths ;  in  Italy  lamps  are  kept  burning  over  them.  But 
the  reasons  which  established  these  customs  have  disap- 
peared ;  for  us  they  are  no  more  than  a  way  of  betokening 
our  care  for  the  beloved,  of  piously  showing  our  intimate 
feelings  by  outward  signs  and  marking  the  duration  of 
our  regrets  and  our  memories.  They  are  survivals  which 
have  lost  all  the  concrete  and  real  meaning  which  they 
had  in  the  far-off  days  when  men  believed  that  a  being 
like  themselves  sojourned  in  the  place  in  which  bones  or 
ashes  were  deposited. 

The  dead  were  not  then  cut  off  from  the  society  of  the 
living ;  the  connection  between  them  and  their  surround- 
ings was  not  broken;  the  continuity  between  the  hour 
which  preceded  and  that  which  followed  their  decease 
was  not  interrupted.  It  has  often  been  remarked  that  in 
this  respect  ancient  ideas  were  profoundly  different  from 
ours.  Those  lost  to  sight  did  not  then  cease  to  partake 
of  the  life  of  their  families;  they  remained  in  com- 
munication with  their  friends  and  their  kin,  who  met 

33  Cf.  Petronius,  71:  "Omne  genus  poma  volo  sint  circa  cineres  meos  et 
vinearum  largiter";  Dessau,  8342  ss. ;  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  200. 


58  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

together  in  their  new  dwelling,  and  an  effort  was  made  to 
render  their  isolation  less  hard  to  bear  by  bringing  them 
into  touch  with  many  people.  Our  dead  rest  in  peaceful 
and  remote  graveyards  where  no  noise  or  din  may  trouble 
the  tranquil  mood  of  afflicted  visitors.  The  Romans  placed 
their  dead  along  the  great  roads,  near  the  gates  of  towns, 
where  there  was  press  of  passers-by  and  the  rolling  of 
chariot-wheels.  Their  wish  was  not,  when  they  buried 
them  beside  the  most  frequented  highways,  to  recall  their 
destiny  to  mortals,  although  philosophers  have  thus  ex- 
plained the  custom.34  On  the  contrary,  they  wanted  to 
cause  those  who  were  no  more  to  forget  their  own  destiny. 
"I  see,"  says  an  epitaph,35  "and  I  gaze  upon  all  who  go 
and  come  from  and  to  the  city."  "Lollius  has  been 
placed,"  we  read  elsewhere,36  "by  the  side  of  the  road  in 
order  that  all  passers-by  may  say  to  him,  'Good  day, 
Lollius.'  " 

The  inscriptions  in  which  the  dead  speak,  addressing 
those  who  stop  before  their  monuments,  are  innumerable. 
They  console  such  as  continue  to  love  them,  thank  those 
who  are  still  busy  on  their  behalf  and  express  wishes  for 
their  happiness,  or  else  they  impart  to  their  successors 
the  wisdom  acquired  by  experience  of  life.  Often  they  take 
part  with  them  in  a  dialogue,  answering  their  greetings 
and  wishes:  "May  the  earth  be  light  on  thee!" — "Fare 
thou  well  in  the  upper  world";37  or  else:  "Hail  Fabia- 
nus." — "May  the  gods  grant  you  their  benefits,  my 
friends,  and  may  the  gods  be  propitious  to  you,  travellers, 
and  to  you  who  stop  by  Fabianus !  Go  and  come  safe  and 
sound !  May  you  who  crown  me  with  garlands  or  throw  me 
flowers,  live  for  many  years ! ' ,38 

***** 

Thus  throughout  antiquity,  in  spite  of  the  evolution  of 

34Varro,  Lingu.  Lat.,  VI,  49  (45). 

35  Arch,  epigr.  Mitt,  aus  Oesterreich,  X,  1886,  p.  64. 

36  Dessau,  6746. 

37  Ibid.,  8130. 
ss/Znd.,  1967;  cf.  8139. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  59 

ideas  as  to  the  future  life,  the  persuasion  always  re- 
mained invincible  that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  moved 
about    among    men.    These    disincarnate    intelligences, 
which  were,  however,  provided  with  light  and  swift  bodies, 
did  not  let  themselves  be  imprisoned  in  the  tomb.  They 
fluttered  unceasingly  around  living  beings,  causing  them 
to  feel  the  effects  of  their  presence.  There  is  here,  mingled 
with  the  primitive  idea  that  a  mysterious  being,  like  it  in 
appearance,  has  its  place  in  the  ground  beside  the  buried 
corpse,  the  other  and  equally  ancient  idea  that  the  soul 
is  a  breath  exhaled  by  the  dead  at  the  moment  when  they 
expire.  To  breathe  is  the  first  act  which  marks  the  life  of 
a  newly  born  infant  and  to  cease  to  breathe  is  the  first 
sign  which  betokens  the  extinction  of  life.  Primitive  peo- 
ple therefore  naturally  thought  that  the  principle  which 
animated  the  body  was  a  breath,  which  entered  it  at  birth 
and  left  it  at  death.  The  very  name  which  denotes  the 
vivifying  essence  is  in  most  languages  witness  to  the 
general  predominance  of  this  conception.  Vvxv  in  Greek 
is  connected  with  ^w,  "to  blow";  the  Latin  animus  or 
anima  corresponds  to  avefxos,  "wind,"  and  in  the  Semitic 
languages  nefes  and  ruah  have  a  similar  meaning.  At  the 
moment  in  which  man  expired,  his  soul  escaped  through 
his  mouth  and  floated  in  the  ambient  air.  The  Pythago- 
reans, when  they  taught  that  "the  air  is  full  of  souls,"39 
were  conforming  to  an  old  belief  which  is  not  Greek  only 
but  universal.  When  Virgil40  shows  us  Dido's  sister,  at 
the  time  of  the  queen's  suicide,  receiving  the  last  breath 
which  floats  on  her  dying  lips,  he  is  lending  a  Boman 
custom  to  the  Carthaginians,  the  custom  of  the  last  kiss 
which,  according  to  a  widely  held  belief,  could  catch  on 
its  way  the  soul  which  was  escaping  into  the  atmosphere. 
This  soul  was  often  imagined  as  a  bird  in  flight  and  we 
will  see  elsewhere  the  conclusions  drawn  from  this  naive 
conception.41  Here  we  wish  merely  to  indicate  how  the 

39  Diog.  Laert.,  VIII,  32 ;  cf.  Servius,  Aen.,  Ill,  63 ;  Lecture  VI,  p.  160. 

40  Virg.,  Aen.,  IV,  685. 

4i  See  Lecture  VI,  p.  157. 


60  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

idea  of  the  aerial  soul  was  combined  with  that  of  the 
spirit  inhabiting  the  tomb.  This  shade  or  simulacrum  of 
those  who  were  no  longer  of  this  world,  but  who  still 
existed,  since  they  showed  themselves  to  the  living  in 
their  previous  guise,  was  a  body  like  the  wind — intangi- 
ble, invisible,  save  when  it  thickened  like  clouds  or  smoke. 
A  multitude  of  these  vaporous  beings,  innumerable  as 
past  generations,  moved  unceasingly  on  the  earth's  sur- 
face, and,  above  all,  roamed  around  the  tombs,  where  they 
were  retained  by  their  attachment  to  their  bodies. 
Whether,  like  the  Greeks,  men  identified  them  with  the 
"  demons, "  or,  like  the  Romans,  called  them  "  Manes 
gods,"  "genii"  or  "  lemur  es,"  or  by  other  names,  the 
unanimous  opinion  was  that  their  power  was  superior  to 
that  of  mankind  and  that  they  caused  it  to  be  felt  by  a 
constant  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  human  society. 

It  was  generally  held  that  if  the  required  cult  were  not 
rendered  them,  they  would  punish  this  neglect  with  wrath, 
but  that  they  showed  their  benevolence  to  those  who  de- 
served it  by  zeal  in  serving  them.42  The  dead  were  capa- 
ble, like  the  living,  of  gratitude  as  well  as  of  resent- 
ment. The  greater  had  been  their  power  in  this  world,  the 
more  considerable  it  remained  in  the  other,  and  the  more 
advantage  there  was  in  securing  their  protection  or  even 
their  co-operation. 

Servius  reports  the  existence  of  the  singular  belief  that 
souls  had  to  swear  to  Pluto  never  to  help  those  they  had 
left  behind  them  on  earth  to  escape  from  their  destiny.43 
Such  was,  then,  the  extent  of  their  supposed  power.  But 
all  the  dead  were  not,  like  some  of  the  heroes  who  had  be- 
come the  equals  of  the  gods,  capable  of  performing  prodi- 
gious deeds.  Many,  gifted  with  less  force,  were  concerned 
with  lesser  interests ;  they  did  no  more  than  protect  their 
family,  the  domestic  hearth  and  the  neighbouring  field, 
and  render  small  daily  services.  "Farewell,  Donata,  thou 

42  Cf.  Porph.,  Be  dbstin.,  II,  37. 

«  Servius,  Georg.,  I,  277;  cf.  Dessau,  8006. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  61 

who  wast  pious  and  just,"  says  an  epitaph,  " guard  all 
thy  kin.' m 

The  idea  that  the  ancestors  become  the  tutelary  spirits 
of  their  descendants  who  were  faithful  to  their  duty  to 
them,  goes  back  to  the  remotest  antiquity  and  probably 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  the  cult  of  the  Lares.45  But  the 
field  of  action  of  these  genii  was  multiple,  since  they  were 
a  multitude,  and  their  functions  underwent  a  further  de- 
velopment when  they  were  considered  to  be  the  equiva- 
lents of  the  demons  of  the  Greeks.  "The  souls  of  the 
dead,"  Maximus  of  Tyre46  tells  us,  "mingle  with  all  kinds 
of  men,  with  every  destiny,  thought  and  pursuit  of  man ; 
they  support  the  good,  succour  the  oppressed  and  punish 
the  criminal."  Plotinus,  recalling  the  universal  custom 
of  paying  cult  to  those  who  have  gone,  adds :  "Many  souls 
which  belonged  to  men  do  not  cease  to  do  good  to  men 
when  they  have  left  the  body.  They  come  to  their  aid 
especially  in  granting  them  revelations."47 

The  wish  is  therefore  entertained  to  see  in  dreams 
those  who  have  left  an  empty  place  in  the  family  dwelling 
or  the  marriage  couch.  A  woman  whom  a  murder  has 
separated  from  her  young  husband  prays  the  most  holy 
Manes  to  be  indulgent  to  him  and  to  allow  her  to  see  him 
again  during  the  hours  of  the  night.48  But  it  was  not  only 
in  dreams  that  men  hoped  to  descry  again  those  who  were 
lost  to  sight.  "If  tears  are  of  any  avail,"  says  another 
epitaph,  "show  thyself  by  apparitions  (w)."49  Is  it  a 
question  here  also  of  nocturnal  apparitions?  Perhaps; 
but  the  belief  that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  returned  to  the 
earth  and  made  themselves  visible  to  people  who  were 
wide  awake  met  with  very  little  incredulity  among  the 

44  CIL,  VIII,  2803a :  i '  Donata,  pia,  iusta,  vale,  serva  tuos  omnes. ' ' 

45  Margaret  Waites,  American  journ.  of  archaeol.,  1920,  242  ss. 

46  Maxim.  Tyr.,  Diss.,  IX  (XV),  6. 

47  Plotinus,  Enn.,  IV,  7,  20. 

48  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  8006.  "Manus  mala"  means  probably  a  murder 
produced  by  witchcraft;  cf.  ibid.,  8522;  Lecture  V,  p.  135. 

49  CIL,  II,  4427:  "Lacrimae  si  prosunt,  visis  te  ostende  video.' ' 


62  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

ancients.  It  was  not  only  the  common  man  who  accepted 
it ;  most  thinkers  upheld  this  opinion.  Lncian50  shows  us 
a  meeting  of  philosophers  in  which  no  one  doubts  "that 
there  are  demons  and  phantoms  and  that  the  souls  of  the 
dead  do  wander  on  earth  and  show  themselves  to  whom 
they  please."  A  single  fact  will  suffice  to  prove  how 
general  was  this  conviction.  The  sober  historian  Dio  Cas- 
sius51  relates  that  in  his  time,  more  precisely  in  the  year 
220  A.  D.,  a  demon  (who  was  evidently  a  flesh  and  blood 
impostor)  appeared  in  the  Danubian  countries  in  the  form 
of  Alexander  the  Great.  He  was  followed  by  four  hundred 
Bacchantes  carrying  the  thyrsus  and  the  nebris.  This 
troop  went  through  all  Thracia  without  doing  any  harm 
to  the  inhabitants,  who  hastened  to  give  them  shelter  and 
food,  and  not  a  single  official  dared  oppose  their  passage. 
Arrived  near  Chalcedon,  the  pseudo-Alexander  made  a 
strange  sacrifice  one  night,  burying  a  wooden  horse,  and 
thereupon  immediately  disappeared. 

Like  modern  spiritualists,  the  ancients  saw  in  these 
apparitions  an  irrefutable  proof  of  the  after  life.  * '  Thou 
who  doubtest  the  existence  of  the  Manes/ '  we  read  on 
the  tomb  of  two  young  girls,  "invoke  us  after  making  a 
vow  and  thou  wilt  understand. ' ,52  Revelations  were  in- 
deed to  be  expected  of  the  wisdom  of  the  disincarnate 
souls.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  laws  forbidding  magic, 
necromancy  never  ceased  to  be  practised.  By  a  nocturnal 
sacrifice,  analogous  to  that  offered  on  tombs  (p.  52)  and 
by  the  virtue  of  their  incantations,  the  wizards  obliged 
the  dead  to  appear  before  them  and  answer  their  ques- 
tions. The  poets  and  romancers  liked  to  introduce  in  their 
works  descriptions  of  the  atrocious  ceremonies  which 
were  intended  to  give  momentary  life  even  to  a  corpse 
and  cause  it  to  pronounce  oracles. 

The  dead  in  these  scenes  often  appear  as  restive  and 

so  Lucian,  Philopseudes,  29. 
si  Dio  Cassius,  LXXIX,  18. 

52  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  8201a:  "Tu  qui  legis  et  dubitas  Manes  esse,  spon- 
sione  facta  invoca  nos  et  intelleges. ' ' 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  63 

even  hostile  beings  who  were  forced  to  such  actions  by  the 
power  of  witchcraft.  The  dominant  feeling  among  all  peo- 
ples is  indeed  that  the  dead  are  unhappy  and  therefore 
malevolent.  They  were  believed  to  be  excessively  sensi- 
tive: great  care  must  be  taken  to  do  nothing  to  offend 
them.  If  their  rights  were  overlooked,  if  they  were  for- 
gotten, they  showed  their  wrath  by  sending  illnesses  and 
scourges  to  the  guilty.  This  unpleasant  and  sometimes 
cruel,  even  ferocious  character  of  the  Manes  is  very 
marked  in  Rome,  perhaps  in  consequence  of  the  influence 
of  the  Etruscans  or  the  beliefs  concerning  after  life.  A 
legend  had  it  that  the  ceremonies  of  the  Parentalia  hav- 
ing on  one  occasion  been  omitted,  the  plaintive  ghosts 
scattered  about  the  town  and  the  fields  and  caused 
many  deaths.53  What  we  know  of  the  rites  performed  at 
the  Lemuria  and  at  funerals  shows  that  they  tended  to 
protect  the  house  against  the  spirits  haunting  it  and  to 
rid  it  of  them. ' '  The  dead  are  welcome  neither  to  the  gods 
nor  to  men,"  says  an  old  Latin  inscription.54  To  the 
family  Lares  who  protected  a  household,  the  larvae  were 
opposed,  the  wandering  phantoms  who  spread  terror  and 
evil.  '  *  Spare  thy  mother,  thy  father  and  thy  sister, ' '  we 
read  on  a  tomb,  "in  order  that  after  me  they  may  cele- 
brate the  traditional  rites  for  thee."55  This  hostile  charac- 
ter attributed  to  inhabitants  of  the  tombs  explains  the 
custom  of  placing  in  them  leaden  tablets  on  which  curses 
were  written  calling  down  the  most  frightful  ills  on 
enemies.  A  large  number  of  these  tabellae  defixionum  in 
Greek  and  Latin  have  been  found  and  they  prove  the  fre- 
quency of  this  practice,  which  has  perhaps  an  Oriental 
origin.56  But  the  devotio  to  the  Manes  gods  is  an  old 
Roman  ceremony,  which  proceeds  from  the  idea  that  they 

53  Ovid,  Fast.,  II,  546. 

5-tCIL,  I,  818=VI,  10407e=Dessau,  8749:  "Mortuus  nee  ad  deos  nee  ad 
homines  aeceptus  est."     Cf.  CIL,  X,  8249. 

55  CIL,  VI,   12072:    "Parce  matrem  tuam  et  patrem  et  sororem  tuam 
Marinam,  ut  possint  tibi  facere  post  me  sollemnia. " 

56  Audollent,  Defixionum  tabellae,  1904. 


64  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

endeavour  to  tear  the  living  from  the  earth  and  draw 
them  to  themselves. 


There  is  one  class  of  the  dead  which  is  peculiarly 
noxious,  those  namely  who  have  not  been  buried.  The 
ideas  connected  with  them  are  so  characteristic  of  the 
oldest  conception  of  immortality  that  these  arafyoi  or  in- 
sepulti  deserve  to  detain  us  for  a  few  moments. 

From  the  most  ancient  times  the  beliefs  reigned 
among  all  the  peoples  of  antiquity  that  the  souls  of  those 
who  are  deprived  of  burial  find  no  rest  in  the  other  life. 
If  they  have  no  "eternal  house "  they  are  like  homeless 
vagabonds.  But  the  fact  that  the  dead  had  been  buried  did 
not  suffice;  their  burial  must  also  have  been  performed 
according  to  the  traditional  rites.  Perhaps  the  liturgical 
formulas  were  supposed  to  have  power  to  keep  the 
shade  in  the  tomb,  as  other  incantations  could  summon  it 
thence.  Above  all,  however,  it  was  believed,  as  we  have 
already  stated,  that  when  the  dead  had  not  obtained  the 
offerings  to  which  they  had  the  right,  they  suffered  and 
that  their  unquiet  spirits  fluttered  near  the  corpse  and 
wandered  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth  and  the  waters, 
taking  vengeance  on  men  for  the  ills  men  had  inflicted  on 
them. 

The  denial  of  interment  was  thought  to  be  the  source 
of  infinite  torment  for  the  dead  as  for  the  living,  and  to 
throw  earth  on  abandoned  corpses  was  a  pious  duty.  The 
pontiffs,  who  believed  the  sight  of  a  corpse  made  them 
unclean,  might  not  for  all  that  leave  it  unburied  if  they 
happened  to  find  one  on  their  way.  To  bury  the  dead  has 
remained  a  work  of  mercy  in  the  Church,  and  in  Rome  a 
confraternity  still  exists  which  brings  in  from  far  away 
the  dead  found  lying  in  the  desert  Campagna.  The  pain 
represented  by  lack  of  burial  was  the  worst  chastisement 
called  down  by  imprecations  on  enemies  on  whom  venge- 
ance was  desired.  Among  believers  it  gave  rise  to  an 
anxiety  comparable  with  that  which  the  refusal  of  the 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  65 

last  sacrament  now  causes  to  Roman  Catholics.  In  the 
Greek  cities,  as  in  Rome,  the  law  often  condemned  to  it 
those  who  had  committed  suicide  or  had  been  executed, 
hoping  thus  to  divert  desperate  and  outrageous  men  from 
their  fatal  design  by  the  apprehension  of  a  wretched  lot 
in  the  Beyond.57  Sometimes  the  law  merely  laid  down  that 
the  guilty  must  not  be  interred  in  the  soil  of  their  country, 
an  almost  equally  terrible  penalty,  since  it  cut  them  off 
from  the  family  cult,  by  which  their  descendants  could 
give  satisfaction  to  their  Manes.  When,  therefore,  through 
some  accident,  a  traveller  or  soldier  died  abroad  or  was 
shipwrecked  at  sea,  his  body  was,  when  possible,  brought 
back  to  his  country,  or,  if  this  could  not  be  done,  a  ceno- 
taph was  raised  to  him,  and  his  soul  was  summoned  aloud 
to  come  and  inhabit  the  dwelling  prepared  for  it.  When 
cremation  became  general  in  Rome,  the  old  pontifical  law 
invented  another  subterfuge  which  allowed  the  ancient 
rites  to  be  accomplished :  a  finger  was  cut  from  the  body 
before  it  was  carried  to  the  pyre,  and  earth  was  thrown 
three  times  on  this  "resected  bone"  (os  resectum). 

Against  these  ancient  beliefs,  which  were  the  source  of 
so  much  anguish  and  so  many  superstitions,  the  philoso- 
phers fought  energetically.  First  the  Cynics  and  then  the 
Epicureans  and  the  Stoics  endeavoured  to  show  their 
absurdity.  They  are  fond  of  quoting  the  answer  of  Theo- 
dore the  Atheist  to  Lysimachus  who  was  threatening  him 
with  death  without  burial — "What  matters  it  whether  I 
rot  on  the  earth  or  under  it?"  Since  the  corpse  was  un- 
conscious and  without  any  sensibility,  it  was  indeed  of  no 
consequence  whether  it  were  burnt  or  buried,  eaten  by 
worms  or  by  crows.  Why  should  it  be  a  misfortune  to  die 
abroad?  Only  the  living  had  a  country;  the  whole  earth 
was  the  dwelling  of  the  dead.  If  such  cares  troubled  men 
they  were  the  victims  of  the  invincible  illusion  that  the 
body  retained  capacity  to  feel  even  beyond  the  grave. 

The  very  frequency  with  which  these  commonplaces  of 

57  See  below,  Lecture  V,  pp.  143,  145. 


66  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

the  school  are  repeated  shows  how  tenacious  were  the 
prejudices  which  they  attempted  to  eradicate.  Here,  as 
in  other  connections,  the  renewal  of  Pythagorism  super- 
vened at  the  end  of  the  Republic  to  favour  the  persistence 
of  the  old  beliefs.  A  doctrine,  to  which  Plato  alludes,58 
taught  that  souls  which  had  not  been  appeased  by  funeral 
rites,  had  to  wander  for  a  hundred  years,  the  normal  term 
of  a  human  life.  Confined  in  the  air  near  the  earth,  they 
remained  subject  to  the  power  of  magicians.  Especially  if 
the  wizards  had  been  able  to  obtain  possession  of  some 
portion  of  the  corpse,  whence  the  soul  could  not  entirely 
detach  itself,  they  gained  influence  over  it  and  could 
constrain  its  obedience.  "When  this  century  of  suffering 
had  elapsed,  these  souls  were  admitted  to  a  place  of  puri- 
fication, where  they  sojourned  ten  times  longer,  and  when 
these  thousand  years  had  passed  they  returned  to  rein- 
carnate themselves  in  new  bodies.  We  will  see  in  another 
lecture59  that  the  Pythagoreans  enunciated  analogous 
theories  as  to  the  lot  of  children  swept  off  before  their 
time  and  of  men  who  died  a  violent  death. 

Virgil  describing  the  descent  of  Aeneas  into  the  infer- 
nal regions  recalls  these  Pythagorean  speculations  when 
he  shows  us  the  miserable  crowd  of  the  unburied  shades 
fluttering  for  a  hundred  years  on  the  bank  of  the  Styx 
before  they  obtained  from  Charon  their  passage  to  its 
other  shore.60 

Favoured  by  these  new  tendencies  of  philosophy,  the 
unreasoning  apprehension  inspired  by  omission  of  burial 
subsisted  under  the  Empire,  not  only  among  the  ignorant 
many,  but  also  in  the  most  enlightened  classes.  This  fear 
explains  why  everyone  took  extreme  care  to  have  a  tomb 
built  for  himself  and  to  ensure,  if  he  could,  that  funeral 
ceremonies  were  celebrated  in  it,  why  many  epitaphs 
threaten  with  judicial  penalties  and  divine  punishments 

58  Plato,  Eepubl.,  X,  615  A  B;  cf.  Norden,  Aeneis  Buck  VI,  p.  10. 

so  See  Lecture  V,  p.  134. 

eoVirg.,  Aen.,  VI,  325  ss:  "Inops  inhumataque  turba.  .  .  .  Centum 
errant  annos  volitantque  haec  litora  circum." 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  67 

the  sacrilegious  offenders  who  should  violate  the  grave, 
and  why  such  a  number  of  popular  colleges  were  founded, 
of  which  the  principal  object  was  to  secure  decent  obse- 
quies to  their  members.  The  rules  of  the  cultores  of  Diana 
and  Antinoiis  at  Lanuvium  stipulate  that  when  a  slave 
dies  and  his  master  maliciously  refuses  to  deliver  his 
body  for  burial,  a  "funus  imaginariurn"  be  made  for  him, 
that  is,  that  the  ceremony  be  celebrated  over  a  figure 
representing  the  dead  man  and  wearing  his  mask.61  From 
this  "imaginary' '  burial  effects  were  expected  as  benefi- 
cent as  those  results  are  maleficent  which  a  wizard  antici- 
pated when  he  fettered  and  pierced  a  waxen  doll  to  work 
a  charm. 

From  the  stories  of  the  gravest  writers  we  perceive 
what  lot  was  believed  to  threaten  the  unfortunate  who 
were  burnt  or  interred  without  the  rites  being  observed. 
After  Caligula's  murder  his  corpse  was  hastily  shovelled 
into  the  ground  in  a  garden  on  the  Esquiline  (horti 
Lamiani),  but  then  the  keepers  of  this  park  were  terrified 
by  apparitions  until  the  imperial  victim's  sisters  caused 
his  body  to  be  exhumed,  and  buried  it  in  accordance  with 
the  sacred  rules.62  Pliny  the  Younger  in  one  of  his  letters 
seriously  relates  a  story  which  seems  to  have  been  often 
repeated,  for  we  find  it,  little  changed,  in  Lucian.63  There 
was  in  Athens  a  haunted  house  which  remained  empty,  no 
one  daring  to  live  in  it  because  several  of  its  tenants  had 
died  of  fright.  In  the  silence  of  the  night  a  noise  was 
heard  as  of  clanking  iron ;  then  a  horrible  spectre  moved 
forward  in  the  shape  of  an  emaciated  old  man,  bearded 
and  hairy,  rattling  the  chains  which  were  about  his  feet 
and  legs.  A  philosopher  dared  to  take  this  house,  and  he 
settled  himself  there  one  evening,  resolved  to  keep  him- 
self awake  by  working.  The  ghost  appeared  to  him,  came 
towards  him  with  its  usual  clatter,  signed  to  him  to  follow 
and  disappeared  in  the  courtyard.  When  daylight  came, 

6i  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  7213=CIL,  XIV,  2112,  II,  4. 

62  Sueton.,  Calig.,  59 ;  cf.  Plautus,  MostelL,  III,  2. 

63  Pliny,  Epist.,  VII,  27;  Lucian,  Philopseudes,  31. 


68  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

a  hole  was  dug  in  the  place  where  the  phantom  had  van- 
ished, and  a  skeleton  in  fetters  was  found.  The  bones  were 
taken  up  and  burned  according  to  the  rites,  and  there- 
after nothing  troubled  the  quiet  of  the  house.  Lucian,  in 
his  version  of  this  ghost  story,  specifies  the  philosopher 
as  a  Pythagorean  and  shows  him  repelling  the  apparition 
by  the  virtue  of  his  spells.  The  Pythagoreans  were  indeed 
often  necromancers,  convinced  defenders  of  spiritualism, 
in  which,  as  we  have  said  (p.  62),  they  sought  an  imme- 
diate proof  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  by  their 
doctrines  they  contributed  to  keeping  alive  the  super- 
stitious fear  attached  to  omission  of  burial. 

But  they  were  no  more  than  theorists  as  to  a  belief 
which  was  widespread  and  which  the  invasion  of  Oriental 
magic  was  to  revive.  The  curse-tablets  often  evoke, 
together  with  other  demons,  "  those  who  are  deprived  of 
a  sacred  tomb"  (aVo/)ot  7779  tepas  rcu^s).64  They  associate 
them  with  those  who  have  died  before  their  time  or  by  a 
violent  death.65  Heliodorus66  the  romancer,  a  priest  of 
Emesa  in  Syria,  who  probably  lived  in  the  third  century, 
pictures  for  us  a  very  characteristic  scene:  a  child  has 
been  killed ;  a  wizard  takes  its  body,  places  it  between  two 
fires,  and  performs  a  complicated  operation  over  it,  in 
order  to  restore  it  to  life  by  his  incantations  and  to  obtain 
a  prediction  of  the  future.  "Thou  forcest  me  to  rise  again 
and  to  speak/ '  the  child  complains,  "  taking  no  thought 
for  my  funeral  and  thus  preventing  me  from  mingling 
with  the  other  dead. '  '  For  the  shades  of  the  nether  world 
rejected  one  who  had  been  left  unburied.67 

These  ancient  beliefs,  which  the  East  shared  with  the 
West,  were,  more  or  less  modified,  to  survive  the  down- 
fall of  paganism.  If  the  Christians  of  the  first  centuries 
no  longer  feared  that  they  would  go  to  join  the  shades 
who  wandered  on  the  bank  of  the  Styx,  they  were  still 

64  Audollent,  Defixionum  tabellae,  27,  1.  18;  cf.  22  ss. 

65  See  Lecture  V,  p.  135. 

66  Heliodorus,  Aeth.,  VI,  15. 

67  See  Lecture  VIII,  p.  193. 


AFTER  LIFE  IN  THE  TOMB  69 

pursued  by  the  superstitious  dread  that  they  would  have 
no  part  in  the  resurrection  of  the  flesh  if  their  bodies  did 
not  rest  in  the  grave.68  Nay,  the  terrors  of  former  ages 
still  haunt  the  Greeks  of  today.  The  people  remain  per- 
suaded that  those  who  have  not  had  a  religious  funeral 
return  to  wander  on  the  earth,  and  that,  changed  to 
bloody  vampires,  they  punish  men,  and  in  particular 
their  kin,  for  their  neglect.69  A  nomocanon  of  the  Byzan- 
tine Church  orders  that  if  the  body  of  a  ghost  be  found 
intact,  when  disinterred,  its  maleficent  power  thus  being 
proved,  it  be  burnt  and  a  funeral  service  with  an  offering 
of  meats  be  afterwards  celebrated  for  its  soul.  This  is 
exactly  what  was  done  in  antiquity  in  order  to  appease 
the  dead  who  had  not  been  buried  according  to  the  rite, 
rite  conditi. 

68  Leblant,  Epigraphie  cJiretienne  de  la  Gaule,  1890,  52  ss. 

69  Lawson,  Modem  Greek  folklore,  1910,  p.  403. 


II 

THE  NETHER  WORLD 

A  MONG  most  peoples  the  primitive  idea  of  an  after 
/\  life  in  the  grave  was  enlarged  into  the  conception 
^~m  of  a  common  existence  of  the  dead  in  the  depths 
of  the  earth.  The  dead  man  does  not  stay  confined  in  the 
narrow  dwelling  in  which  he  rests;  he  goes  down  into 
vast  caverns  which  extend  beneath  the  crust  of  the  soil  we 
tread.  These  immense  hollows  are  peopled  by  a  multitude 
of  shades  who  have  left  the  tomb.  Thus  the  tomb  becomes 
the  antechamber  of  the  true  dwelling  of  the  spirits  who 
have  departed;  its  door  is  the  gate  of  Hades  itself. 
Through  the  tomb,  the  great  company  of  the  beings  who 
have  been  plunged  in  the  darkness  of  the  infernal  regions 
remains  in  communication  with  those  who  still  sojourn 
in  our  upper  world.  The  libations  and  offerings  made  by 
the  survivors  on  the  grave  descend  to  this  gloomy  hypo- 
geum  and  there  feed  and  rejoice  those  for  whom  they  are 
intended.  Until  the  time  of  the  Roman  Empire,  nay,  to  the 
end  of  antiquity,  the  common  man  believed  in  this  won- 
der.1 To  attempt  to  define  the  means  by  which  it  was 
brought  about  would  be  vain.  These  were  beliefs  which 
went  back  so  far  and  were  so  deeply  rooted  in  the  mind 
of  the  people  that  men  accepted  them  without  seeking  to 
explain  them. 

In  Rome,  the  idea  that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  inhabit  a 
common  dwelling  in  the  nether  world  existed  from  the 
time  when  the  city  had  its  beginnings.  It  kept  in  religion 
a  coarsely  naive  form  which  proves  how  archaic  it  was. 

1  Lucian,  Be  luctu,  9. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  71 

According  to  a  rite  borrowed  by  the  Romans  from  the 
Etruscans,  a  pit  was  dug  in  the  centre  of  the  city,  when 
the  latter 's  foundations  were  laid,  in  order  to  make  the 
Inferi  communicate  with  the  upper  world.  First  fruits  and 
other  gifts  were  thrown  into  the  pit,  as  well  as  a  clod  of 
the  earth  of  the  settlers'  native  country.  Thus  they  re- 
stored their  broken  contact  with  the  Manes  of  their  ances- 
tors. In  all  probability  this  hole  was  formed  of  a  vertical 
pit  ending  in  a  chamber  with  an  arched  roof  curved  like 
the  heaven — hence  the  name  mundus  given  to  it.  The  key 
of  the  vault  of  this  lower  cellar  was  formed  of  a  stone,  the 
lapis  Manalis,  which  could  be  raised  in  order  to  let  the 
spirits  pass.  Three  times  a  year,  on  the  twenty-fourth  of 
August,  the  fifth  of  October  and  the  eighth  of  November, 
this  ceremony  took  place :  the  door  of  hell  was  opened  and 
the  dead  had  free  access  to  the  atmosphere.  These  days 
were  therefore  sacred,  religiosi,  and  all  business  was 
suspended  on  them. 

Recently  the  mundus  of  the  ancient  Roma  Quadrata 
was  believed  to  have  been  discovered  during  excavations 
of  the  Palatine,  but  the  underground  space  in  question  is 
probably  only  a  silo  or  a  cistern.  Other  pits  used  for  the 
cult  of  the  dead  existed  elsewhere  in  the  city.  It  has  re- 
cently been  suggested  that  the  altar  of  the  god  Consus, 
which  was  hidden  in  a  ditch  in  the  middle  of  the  Circus 
Maximus  and  uncovered  during  the  races,  was  one  of 
these  mouths  of  hell  and  like  that  shown  in  representa- 
tions of  the  funeral  games  of  the  Etruscans.2 

But  on  certain  days  the  souls  of  the  dead  rose  to  the 
earth's  surface  of  themselves,  although  nothing  had  been 
done  to  make  their  coming  thither  easier,  and  they  then 
had  to  be  appeased  by  sacrifices.  This  was  what  happened 
from  the  thirteenth  to  the  twenty-first  of  February,  dur- 
ing the  Parentalia,  when  the  souls  of  ancestors  were 
honoured,  and  on  the  ninth,  the  eleventh  and  the  thir- 
teenth of  May,  the  dates  of  the  Lemuria,  on  which,  at  mid- 

sPiganiol,  Bevue  d'histoire  et  de  litt.  religieuses,  VI,  1920,  p.  335  ss. 


72  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

night,  according  to  a  prescribed  ceremonial,  the  father  of 
the  family  nine  times  threw  black  beans  to  the  Lemur  es  to 
keep  them  away  from  the  honse. 

Lemur  es  and  Manes  are  nsed  only  in  the  plural :  these 
words  stand  for  the  vague  conceptions  formed  of  the 
shades  of  the  dead  who  dwelt  beneath  the  ground.  These 
were  a  nameless  crowd,  hardly  individualised,  not  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  fleeting  phantoms  who  fluttered 
about  the  tombs.  The  Romans  were  a  people  of  little 
imagination,  and  their  infernal  mythology  remained  rudi- 
mentary until  the  time  when  they  borrowed  from  the 
Greeks  the  picturesque  stories  about  the  adventures  of 
travellers  to  Hades  and  the  blessings  and  misfortunes 
which  there  awaited  them. 

Originally  no  idea  of  retribution  was  attached  to  this 
descent  of  the  dead  into  the  infernal  regions;  it  was 
neither  their  merits  nor  their  demerits  which  determined 
their  condition.  On  the  contrary,  the  inequalities  of 
human  society  were  perpetuated:  a  nobleman  kept  a 
higher  rank  than  that  of  his  servants ;  each  man  in  some 
sort  continued  his  occupations,  even  preserved  his  tastes 
and  his  passions.  Existence  in  the  Beyond  was  conceived 
as  a  mere  prolongation  of  earthly  life.  It  is  to  this  idea, 
which  was  generally  entertained,  that  the  old  custom 
corresponds  of  placing  in  the  grave  the  implements  and 
other  objects  which  a  dead  man  was  in  the  habit  of  using. 
We  have  already  touched  on  this  point  in  speaking  of  life 
in  the  tomb  (p.  49),  but  the  things  deposited  beside  the 
corpse  were  not  only  those  which  could  be  used  by  the 
dweller  of  the  "eternal  house."  If  he  were  a  powerful  lord 
his  chariot,  his  horses  and  his  arms  would  be  buried  with 
him  ;3  a  hunter  would  be  supplied  in  the  other  world  with 
his  spears  and  his  nets  ;4  a  craftsman  with  the  tools  of  his 
trade;  a  woman  with  the  objects  which  enabled  her  to 
spin  and  to  weave.  These  funeral  customs  were  more  than 
a  tradition,  followed  without  reference  to  the  reasons 

3  Cf.  Lucian,  De  luctu,  14. 

4  Cf.  Dessau,  8379. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  73 

inspiring  it.  Among  the  Greeks,  as  among  the  Romans,  the 
idea  survives  persistently,  in  poetic  descriptions  of  the 
Elysian  Fields,  that  each  man  will  there  keep  the  character 
and  retain  the  habits  which  distinguished  him  before  his 
death.  Virgil,  taking  his  inspiration  from  Pindar,  shows 
us  the  blessed  occupied  by  the  contests  of  the  palestra,  by 
song  and  poetry  and  by  chariot  races ;  for,  he  tells  us,  the 
passion  which  the  dead  had  in  life  for  arms  and  for  horses 
still  pursues  them  when  they  have  been  buried  in  the 
earth.5  Ovid6  sketches  with  rapid  touches  an  analogous 
picture.  "The  shades,' '  he  says,  "wander  bloodless,  bodi- 
less, boneless;  some  gather  in  the  forum,  others  follow 
their  trades,  imitating  their  former  way  of  life. ' '  And 
this  is  no  fancy  due  to  the  poet's  imagination.  An  awk- 
ward epitaph  of  a  young,  probably  Syrian,  slave7  tells  us 
that  he  is  glad  still  to  be  able  to  discharge  his  service 
zealously  in  the  retired  place  where  dwells  the  god  of  the 
infernal  abode.  In  these  instances  we  find,  in  spite  of  the 
transformation  undergone  by  eschatological  ideas  as  a 
whole,  a  survival  of  the  old  conception  of  the  destiny  of 
the  dead. 

We  have  not  to  seek  far  to  discover  how  this  transfor- 
mation took  place.  It  was  provoked  by  the  desire  to  sub- 
ject souls  to  different  treatment  according  to  their 
deserts,  and  to  distribute  them  in  distinct  compartments 
in  which  they  would  be  rewarded  or  punished  in  accord- 
ance with  their  past  works.  It  was  much  prior  to  the 
Roman  period,  going  back  to  the  distant  age  at  which 
Orphic  theology,  with  its  sanctions  beyond  the  grave, 
modified  Homeric  tradition  and  popular  religion  in 
Greece.  In  the  West  the  doctrine  which  imposed  itself 
with  the  Hellenic  civilisation  on  peoples  of  foreign  race 
was  ready-made.  It  spread  through  the  south  of  Italy  by 

s  Aen.,  VI,  653  ss. 

6  Ovid,  Metam.,  IV,  443  ss. 

7  Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1186: 

' '  Sed  in  secessum  numinis  inf ernae  domus 
Oficiosus  tandem  ministerio  laetatur  suo." 


74  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

way  of  the  colonies  of  Greater  Greece  in  which  Pythag- 
orism  came  to  its  full  power.  It  is  in  this  country  that 
some  of  the  Orphic  tablets  intended  as  guides  to  the  dead 
in  their  journey  through  the  infernal  realm  have  been 
discovered  in  the  tombs;8  and  the  great  amphorae  of  a 
later  date,  bearing  representations  of  scenes  of  Hades, 
which  were  also  found  in  southern  Italy,  show  the  impor- 
tance which  continued  to  be  attached  there  to  the  idea  of 
the  future  life.  In  Campania,  Lake  Avernus  was  even 
regarded  as  one  of  the  entrances  to  the  nether  world, 
through  which  Ulysses  and  Aeneas  had  descended. 

The  Greek  doctrines  were  also  introduced  among  the 
Etruscans  and  combined  with  the  beliefs  of  this  people 
as  to  an  underworld  in  which  the  Manes  of  the  dead  were 
threatened  by  horrible  demons  and  protected  by  beneficent 
genii.  This  Greek  influence  and  its  alliance  with  the 
native  traditions  appear  in  Etruria  in  a  great  number  of 
funeral  monuments  on  which  we  find  represented  many 
figures  which,  according  to  mythology,  peopled  the  king- 
dom of  Pluto.  One  of  the  most  significant  is  the  fine  sar- 
cophagus, discovered  a  few  years  ago  at  Torre  San  Severo 
near  Bolsena,  which  seems  to  date  from  the  third  century 
B.  C.9  The  two  long  sides  hold  corresponding  reliefs,  the 
one  showing  Achilles'  sacrifice  of  the  Trojan  prisoners 
on  the  grave  of  Patroclus,  the  other  the  sacrifice  of  Polyx- 
ena,  last  of  Priam's  daughters,  on  the  tomb  of  Achilles. 
These  scenes,  borrowed  from  the  Greek  epic  poetry,  are 
placed  between  two  Etruscan  demons,  winged  figures 
which  bear  serpents  and  are  male  on  one  side  and  female 
on  the  other.  The  small  sides  are  decorated  by  two  scenes 
from  the  Odyssey,  the  myth  of  Circe  changing  the  com- 
panions of  Ulysses  into  animals — perhaps  an  allusion  to 
metempsychosis — and  Tiresias'  evocation  of  the  shades 
of  the  dead,  the  Elysian  Fields  being  curiously  indicated. 
This  instance — and  many  others  might  be  cited — shows 

8  See  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  148. 
*Monumenti  Antichi,  XXIV,  1917,  pp.  5-116. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  75 

how  closely  the  Hellenic  legends  of  Hades  had  been  inter- 
mingled with  Etruscan  demonology. 

This  Greek  conception  of  the  infernal  regions,  which 
literature  and  art  were  to  popularise  and  perpetuate  even 
after  credence  had  ceased  to  be  given  to  it,  remains 
familiar  to  us.  Taken  altogether  and  in  the  large,  it  is  that 
of  a  kingdom  imagined  as  an  imitation  of  the  cities  of  our 
world,  in  which,  however,  there  reigns  such  a  rigorous 
justice  as  is  on  our  poor  earth  no  more  than  a  dream  of 
minds  morally  disposed.  This  underground  state,  of 
which  the  frontier  is  defended  by  an  unbridged  river,  the 
Styx,  is  governed  by  powerful  rulers,  Pluto  and  Proser- 
pina. It  has  its  judges,  Minos,  Aeacus  and  Rhada- 
manthus ;  its  executioners,  the  Erinyes  or  Furies ;  and  its 
prison,  Tartarus,  surrounded  by  high  walls.  This  jail,  in 
which  the  guilty,  laden  with  chains,  suffer  the  torments 
enacted  in  Greece  by  the  penal  laws  or  others  more 
atrocious,10  is  distinctly  contrasted  with  the  abode  of  the 
good  citizens  who  freely  enjoy  in  delightful  gardens  all 
the  pleasures  which  make  the  joy  of  human  beings. 

Books  treating  of  the  "Descent  into  Hades,' '  of  which 
a  considerable  number  were  in  circulation,  and  the  poets ' 
descriptions  embroidered  various  patterns  around  this 
central  design.  There  was  a  whole  mythological  and  theo- 
logical efflorescence  which  peopled  with  more  and  more 
numerous  figures  the  fantastic  kingdom  occupying  the 
great  cavern  of  the  earth.  Infinite  variations  were  im- 
agined on  a  traditional  theme,  of  which,  however,  even 
certain  details  were  preserved  from  age  to  age  with  a 
surprising  fidelity.  Lucian  in  his  satirical  description  of 
Charon  and  his  boat  reproduces  types  fixed  in  the  sixth 
century  before  our  era,  for,  as  has  been  observed,  his 
picture  is  in  exact  agreement  with  the  recently  discovered 
fragment  of  a  black-figured  vase.11 

Although  in  our  sources  infernal  topography  is  occa- 
sionally somewhat  confused,  certain  essential  features, 

10  See  below,  Lecture  VII,  p.  172  s. 

ii  Furtwangler,  Archiv  fiir  Religionswissenschaft,  VIII,  1905,  p.  191  ss. 


76  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

which  we  will  here  merely  indicate,  can  be  recognised  in 
it.  We  will  return  to  them  one  after  the  other,  and  speak 
of  them  in  greater  detail,  in  later  lectures.  When  the 
souls,  or  rather  the  shades,  descend  to  the  depths  of  the 
earth,  they  reach  first  a  provisional  abode  where  they 
await  a  decision  as  to  their  lot,  an  intermediate  region 
through  which  all  of  them  pass  but  in  which  some  are  kept 
for  a  considerable  time.12  They  then  cross  the  Styx,  and  a 
road  which  is  also  common  to  all  of  them  leads  them  to 
the  court  which  determines  their  lot.13  This  judging  of 
the  dead  is  foreign  to  Homeric  poetry :  the  idea  of  it  was 
perhaps  borrowed  by  Greece  from  Egypt,  but  from 
ancient  Orphism  onwards  it  was  an  essential  element  of 
infernal  eschatology.  Infallible  judges,  from  whom  no 
fault  is  hid,  divide  into  two  companies  the  multitude  of 
the  souls  appearing  before  them.  The  guilty  are  con- 
strained to  take  the  road  to  the  left  which  leads  to  dark 
Tartarus,  crossing  its  surrounding  river  of  fire,  the 
Pyriphlegethon.  There  those  who  have  committed  inex- 
piable crimes  are  condemned  to  eternal  chastisement.14 
But  the  road  to  the  right  leads  the  pious  souls  to  the 
Elysian  Fields  where,  among  flowered  meadows  and 
wrapped  in  soft  light,  they  obtain  the  reward  of  their 
virtues,  whether,  having  attained  to  perfection,  they  are 
able  to  dwell  for  ever  with  the  heroes,  or  whether,  being 
less  pure,  they  are  obliged  to  return  later  to  the  earth  in 
order  to  reincarnate  themselves  in  new  bodies  after  they 
have  drunk  the  water  of  Lethe  and  lost  the  memory  of 
their  previous  existence. 


The  philosophical  criticism  of  the  Greeks  had  early 
attacked  these  traditional  beliefs,  but  such  negative  atti- 
tude became  more  definite  among  the  thinkers  of  the  sur- 
passingly rationalistic  period  which  came   after  Aris- 

12  See  Lecture  I,  p.  66. 

is  See  Lecture  VI,  p.  151. 

14  See  below,  Lecture  VII,  p.  172  ss. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  77 

totle.15  The  Peripatetics,  who  admitted  at  most  the  sur- 
vival of  reason,  rejected  in  consequence  all  the  myths 
dealing  with  the  descent  of  the  shades  into  the  kingdom 
of  Pluto.  The  Epicureans  were  even  more  radical,  for, 
as  we  have  seen  (p.  7),  they  condemned  the  soul  to  dis- 
solution at  the  moment  of  death,  thus  destroying  the  very 
foundation  of  the  belief  in  Hades.  Their  campaign  against 
stories  in  which  they  saw  only  the  lugubrious  inventions 
of  priests  and  poets,  was  one  of  the  capital  points  of  their 
polemics  against  popular  religion,  and  they  flattered 
themselves  that  by  destroying  faith  in  the  pains  of  Tar- 
tarus they  freed  mankind  from  vain  terrors  which  ob- 
sessed its  minds  and  poisoned  its  joys.  The  Stoics,  we 
know  (p.  13),  taught  that  the  soul  is  a  burning  breath  of 
the  same  nature  as  the  ether  and  as  the  stars  which  shine 
in  the  sky.  As  to  whether  this  ardent  fluid  was  lost  after 
death  in  the  universal  fire,  or  kept  its  individuality  until 
the  final  conflagration  of  the  world,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Porch  varied.  But  one  thing  was  certain :  the  fiery  nature 
of  the  soul  must  prevent  it  from  going  down  into  the 
underground  and  impel  it  to  rise  to  higher  spheres.  If  it 
were  weighed  down  by  its  contact  with  the  body  and  laden 
with  matter,  it  might  float  for  some  time  in  the  dense  air 
surrounding  the  earth  but  could  never  descend  into  its 
depths.16  The  impossibility  of  admitting  literally  the 
truth  of  the  stories  as  to  the  infernal  realm  was  thus 
proved. 

The  same  psychological  doctrine  as  to  the  soul's  kin- 
ship with  the  fire  of  the  heavenly  bodies  was  admitted  in 
the  Alexandrian  age  by  the  sect  which  paid  one  and  the 
same  veneration  to  Pythagoras  and  to  Plato  and  was  thus 
more  attached  than  any  other  to  belief  in  immortality. 
It  gave  in,  to  some  extent,  to  contemporary  rationalism 
and  was  brought  to  modify  its  ideas  as  to  life  beyond  the 
grave.  Ancient  Pythagorism,  the  heir  of  Orphism,  made 
much  of  the  sufferings  reserved  for  sinners  in  the  infer- 

15  See  Introd.,  p.  6. 
i«  See  Introd.,  p.  29. 


78  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

nal  abysses.  A  book  attributed  to  Periktione  still  shows 
the  daughter  who  has  despised  her  parents  as  condemned 
to  suffer,  beneath  the  earth  and  in  the  company  of  the 
impious,  the  eternal  evil  inflicted  by  "Dike  and  the  gods 
of  down  below.,m  But  in  the  first  century  before  our  era 
the  pseudo-Timaeus  of  Locri  declares  that  such  tales  are 
fictions — salutary,  it  is  true — imagined  by  Homer  in 
order  to  divert  from  evil  those  to  whom  truth  alone  was 
not  a  sufficient  guide.18  The  only  penalty  which  can  over- 
take the  sinning  soul  is,  according  to  these  Neo-Pythago- 
reans,  metempsychosis,  which  forces  it  to  reincarnate 
itself  in  a  fleshly  prison.19 

This  doctrine  of  transmigration  claims  to  transport 
hell  to  earth  and  to  explain,  as  moral  allegories,  all  the 
fables  which  the  poets  had  invented.20  The  Inferi  are  noth- 
ing else  than  the  dwellings  of  our  globe,  which  is  the 
lowest  of  the  nine  circles  of  the  world.  The  true  Hades  is 
the  wicked  man's  life  in  which  he  is  tortured  by  his  vices. 
The  rivers  of  hell — Cocytus,  Acheron,  Pyriphlegethon 
and  Styx — are  anger,  remorse,  sadness  and  hate,  which 
cause  man  to  suffer.  The  Furies  are  the  passions,  scourg- 
ing him  with  whips  and  burning  him  with  torches ;  and 
similarly  an  ingenious  interpretation  is  given  to  each  of 
the  pains  suffered  by  Tantalus,  Sisyphus,  the  Danaides 
and  the  others.21 

This  exegesis  led  finally  to  an  absolute  denial  of  the 
existence  of  hell,  but  such  radical  scepticism  was  in  too 
flagrant  contradiction  to  the  old  beliefs  to  be  willingly 
accepted  by  the  minds  which  remained  attached  to  them. 
Hence  arose  attempts  to  bring  these  beliefs  into  harmony 
with  the  psychology  generally  admitted. 

A  first  theory,  to  which  we  will  have  to  return  when 

17  Mullach,  Fragm.  phil.  Graec,  II,  p.  33. 

is  Tim.  Locr.,  Be  anim.  mundi,  17,  p.  104  D;  cf.  Schmekel,  Mittlere  Stoa, 
1892,  p.  435. 

19  Cf.  Lecture  VII,  p.  178  ss. 

20  Cf.  on  this  doctrine  Bevue  de  philologie,  XLIV,  1920,  p.  230  ss. 
2i  Cf.  Lecture  VII,  p.  181. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  79 

speaking  of  the  nature  of  the  surviving  souls,22  seems  to 
have  been  invented  in  Alexandria  and  to  have  been  in- 
spired by  Egyptian  religion.23  The  authors  who  first 
allude  to  it,  one  Greek  and  one  Roman,  are  contem- 
poraries who  wrote  about  the  year  200  B.  C,  the  critic 
Aristarchus  and  the  poet  Ennius,  but  the  transmission  of 
the  doctrine  can  be  traced  through  literary  traditions 
down  to  the  end  of  antiquity.  It  divides  the  human  com- 
posite not  into  two  but  into  three  parts — the  body,  the 
soul  and  the  shade.  The  body  is  destroyed  beneath  the 
earth;  the  soul,  which  is  a  particle  of  the  divine  ether, 
rises  after  death  towards  its  place  of  origin ;  but  a  form 
(etScoXov)  of  subtle  matter  detaches  itself  from  the  corpse, 
and  it  is  this  semblance  (simulacrum)  or  shade  (umbra) 
which  goes  down  to  the  infernal  regions.  The  existence 
of  these  regions  could  thus  be  maintained,  but  they  were 
no  longer  held  to  receive  the  celestial  principle  which 
gave  intelligence. 

Others  allowed  that  it  was  impossible  that  the  earth 
should  contain  subterranean  caverns  large  enough  to 
hold  Tartarus,  the  Elysian  Fields  and  the  infinite  multi- 
tude of  the  dead.  But  they  explained  that  the  word  sub- 
terranean (vTToyeios)  had  been  misunderstood,  that  it  de- 
noted not  the  bowels  of  the  earth  but  the  lower  half  of  the 
terrestrial  globe,  the  southern  hemisphere,  which  was 
unknown  to  the  ancients,  or  even  the  whole  celestial 
hemisphere,  curved  below  this  globe  which  hung  motion- 
less in  the  centre  of  the  universe.24  This  hemisphere  is 
always  invisible, — so  the  ancients  might  say, — which  is 
exactly  the  sense  of  the  word  Hades  (=0161877$).  The 
Axiochos,  an  apocryphal  work  attributed  to  Plato,  was 
first  to  reveal  this  doctrine,  claiming  that  it  had  been  com- 
municated to  Socrates  by  the  Mage  Gobryes.  It  was  in 
reality  borrowed  by  the  Greeks  of  the  Alexandrian  age 
from  the  astral  theology  of  the  Semitic  peoples.  Accord- 

22  See  Lecture  VI,  p.  167. 

23  Cf.  Bev.  philol.,  I.  c,  p.  237  ss. 

24  On  this  doctrine  see  Comptes  rendus  Acad.  Inscriptions,  1920,  p.  272  ss. 


80  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

ing  to  this  theology  the  world  is  divided  into  two  halves 
by  the  line  of  the  horizon ;  the  upper  hemisphere  is  the 
domain  of  the  living  and  the  higher  gods,  the  lower  that 
of  the  dead  and  the  infernal  gods.  Descent  to  it  and  ascent 
from  it  are  by  way  of  two  gates,  situated  west  and  east, 
where  the  sun  appears  and  disappears.  The  marshes  of 
the  Acheron,  the  river  Styx,  and  Charon  and  his  boat  are 
constellations  which  the  souls  cross  when  they  have 
passed  through  the  "gate  of  Hades." 

The  ancient  Greeks  had  placed  the  Islands  of  the 
Blessed,  whither  the  heroes  were  borne  by  the  favour  of 
the  gods,  somewhere  far  away  in  the  ocean.  These  islands 
were  now  supposed  to  lie  in  the  Antipodes,  in  the  un- 
known half  of  the  earth.  All  the  poets '  stories  of  the  fra- 
grant and  melodious  gardens  of  this  abode  of  delights 
were  applied  to  these  marvellous  countries  which  no 
sailor  had  ever  reached.25  On  the  other  hand,  Tartarus 
was  placed  at  the  bottom  of  the  celestial  abysses,  near  the 
lowest  point  of  the  lower  hemisphere,  that  is,  diametri- 
cally opposite  to  Olympus,  the  dwelling  of  the  gods,  who 
were  throned  on  the  summit  of  the  starry  vault.  It  was 
into  this  sombre  gulf  that  the  wicked  were  flung;  there 
yawned  the  bottomless  pit  in  which  the  demons  of  the 
dusky  world  inflicted  eternal  torture  on  the  guilty. 

This  theory  claimed  to  bring  the  ancient  Hellenic 
beliefs  into  agreement  with  the  cosmography  of  astrono- 
mers, but  this  cosmography  itself  undermined  the  foun- 
dations of  the  system,  in  so  far  as  it  refuted  the  hypoth- 
esis of  a  physical  opposition  between  the  two  halves  of 
the  universe.  It  was  observed  that  a  single  sky  revolved 
about  our  earth;  that  the  same  atmosphere,  composed  of 
the  same  elements,  enveloped  it  entirely ;  that  every  part 
of  it  was,  in  turn,  equally  in  the  light  and  in  the  shade. 
Therefore  physical  phenomena  must  be  identical  over  the 
whole  surface  of  our  globe ;  the  climate  of  the  Antipodes 
must  be  like  that  of  our  lands;  if  the  Antipodes  were 

25  Cf.  Lecture  VI,  p.  155. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  81 

peopled,  it  was  by  races  like  those  of  men  and  the  beasts. 
Their  inhabitants  therefore  were  not  the  dead  bnt  living 
beings.  The  marvels  of  the  Fortunate  Isles  did  not  exist 
and  there  was  no  reason  for  regarding  the  lower  rather 
than  the  upper  part  of  the  heavens  as  the  vast  reservoir 
of  souls. 

The  doctrine  which  placed  the  subterranean  kingdom 
of  Pluto  and  Proserpina  on  the  other  side  of  the  earth 
and  in  the  other  celestial  hemisphere,  made  a  poor  resist- 
ance to  this  criticism  of  the  Alexandrian  geographers. 
If  it  did  not  entirely  disappear,  if  its  transmission  can  be 
followed  down  to  the  end  of  antiquity  and  even  to  the 
Middle  Ages,  it  never  was  so  widespread  nor  so  active  as 
another  doctrine  claiming  to  reconcile  the  beliefs  of  the 
past  with  accepted  science. 


This  bold  doctrine  transported  the  whole  subterranean 
world  above  the  earth's  surface.  We  shall  see,  in  the  next 
lecture,  on  celestial  immortality  (p.  96),  that  the  Pythago- 
reans conceived  the  idea  of  placing  the  Elysian  Fields  in 
the  moon,  and  that  the  Fortunate  Isles  were  similarly  ex- 
plained by  them  as  being  the  sun  and  the  moon  bathed  by 
the  fluid  of  the  ether.  The  Inferi  were  thus  the  lower  space, 
that  is,  the  space  extending  between  the  sphere  of  the 
moon,  which  was  the  limit  of  the  world  of  the  gods,  and  our 
globe,  which  was  the  centre  of  the  cosmic  system.  In  the 
Inferi  the  souls  which  had  to  suffer  the  chastisement  of 
their  faults  were  kept  prisoners ;  they  could  not  win  to  the 
stars  but  wandered  plaintively  on  the  earth's  surface  and 
especially  about  their  own  tombs,  and  then  rose  through 
the  atmosphere  in  which,  little  by  little,  they  were  puri- 
fied by  the  elements.  Allegorical  interpretations  found  a 
place  for  the  infernal  rivers  in  this  new  topography  of 
the  Beyond :  Acheron  was  explained  as  being  the  air,  the 
Pyriphlegethon  as  the  zone  of  hail  and  fire,  and  the  mean- 
derings  of  the  Styx  became  the  circles  of  the  universe. 
We  shall  have  occasion  to  return  to  the  passage  of  the 


82  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

soul  through  this  aerial  purgatory  and  its  ascension  to 
the  Elysian  Fields  of  the  sky.26 

This  cosmological  interpretation  of  the  tales  referring 
to  Hades  had  a  more  powerful  influence  than  the  moral 
allegory  which  did  too  much  violence  to  tradition  in 
claiming  to  make  our  earthly  life  the  mythological  hell. 
The  doctrine  that  the  Inferi  were  in  the  atmosphere  was 
adopted  by  Stoicism  at  least  from  the  time  of  Posidonius 
and  was  therefore  widely  believed  from  the  end  of  the 
Roman  Republic  onwards.  Even  the  mysteries,  which  first 
kept  alive  the  belief  in  a  subterranean  kingdom  of  the 
infernal  gods,  did  not  escape  the  influence  of  these  new 
ideas  and  were  brought  to  adapt  their  esoteric  teaching 
to  them.27 

The  transformation  of  ancestral  beliefs  by  this  the- 
ology cannot  today  be  better  apprehended  than  from  the 
sixth  book  of  the  Aeneid.  Virgil,  when  he  relates  the 
descent  of  Aeneas  into  the  abode  of  the  shades,  is  inspired 
by  the  NeJcyia  of  the  Odyssey  and  other  poetic  tales.  He 
remains  apparently  faithful  to  mythological  and  literary 
tradition,  retaining  the  conventional  decoration,  the  un- 
varying geography  of  the  infernal  kingdom ;  but  he  does 
not  admit  the  literal  truth  of  these  beliefs  of  an  earlier 
time;  he  is  aware  of  the  figurative  sense  given  by  the 
philosophers  to  the  old  fables  of  Hades.  At  the  risk  of 
seeming  to  contradict  himself,  he  recalls  this  learned 
eschatology — the  purification,  the  ascension  and  the 
transmigration  of  souls — in  connection  with  what  might 
have  been  no  more  than  the  story  of  a  marvellous  journey 
to  the  country  of  the  dead.  The  unity  of  the  conception 
and  the  composition  is  the  less  seriously  compromised 
because  it  was  believed  that  the  ancient  poets  themselves 
had  wished  to  indicate  these  truths  in  their  verses  under 
the  veil  of  allegory.  The  descent  to  the  nether  world  has 
therefore  a  much  loftier  bearing  in  Virgil  than  a  mere 

26  See  Lecture  VII,  p.  185;  cf.  VI,  p.  161  s. 

27  See  Introd.,  p.  38  s. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  83 

embellishment.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  conviction  or  at 
least  a  hope,  not  only  a  brilliant  fiction  based  on  an  old 
poetic  theme. 


However,  the  symbolical  interpretations  of  the  pagan 
theologians  who  respected  tradition  and  the  purely  nega- 
tive criticism  of  the  sceptics  led  finally  to  a  common 
result,  to  the  destruction,  namely,  of  the  ancient  beliefs, 
even  when  it  was  claimed  that  they  were  being  saved. 
Whether  the  souls  were  held  captive  in  the  other  hemi- 
sphere or  in  the  atmosphere,  or  whether  they  were  con- 
demned to  reincarnation  in  a  body,  Hades  was  trans- 
formed either  to  the  lower  sky,  the  air  or  the  earth,  and 
the  early  conception  of  a  subterranean  world,  whither  the 
dead  who  had  been  laid  in  the  grave  descended,  was 
abolished.  There  are  abundant  texts  to  prove  that  from 
the  end  of  the  Roman  Republic  this  belief  had  lost  its 
grip  on  many  minds.  Cicero28  claims  that  there  was  not  an 
old  woman  left  foolish  enough  to  fear  the  deep  dwellings 
of  Orcus  and  the  gloomy  regions  peopled  by  the  livid 
dead.  "No  one  is  childish  enough,' '  Seneca  repeats,29  "to 
fear  Cerberus  and  the  phantoms  which  appear  in  the 
form  of  skeletons.' '  "That  there  are  Manes,"  says  Juve- 
nal,30 * '  a  subterranean  kingdom,  a  ferryman  armed  with 
a  pole,  and  black  frogs  in  the  gulfs  of  the  Styx,  that  so 
many  thousands  of  men  can  cross  the  dark  water  in  a 
single  boat,"  these  are  things  in  which  everyone  had 
ceased  to  believe  except  very  young  children.  Pliny31 
brings  forward  a  paradoxical  argument,  that,  had  there 
been  infernal  regions,  the  zeal  of  the  miners  who  had  dug 
deep  galleries  in  the  ground  would  have  pierced  their 
boundaries ;  and  even  the  devout  Plutarch,  when  he  comes 
to  speak  of  the  punishments  reserved  by  mythology  for 

28Cic,  Tusc,  I,  21,  48;  cf.  I,  6,  10;  Nat.  deor.,  II,  2,  5. 

29  Sen.,  Epist.,  24,  18. 

30  Juvenal,  Sat.,  II,  149  ss. 
3i  Pliny,  E.  N.,  II,  63,  §158. 


84  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

the  wicked,  sees  in  them  only  nurses'  tales  to  frighten 
babies.32 

The  multiplicity  of  this  testimony  and  its  precision 
allow  no  doubt  that  not  only  the  educated  classes  but  a 
large  portion  of  the  population  rejected  the  fables  as  to 
the  nether  world.  These  fables  were  in  any  case  a  foreign 
importation  in  the  Latin  world.  Moralists,  while  they 
ceased  to  believe  in  them  for  themselves,  sometimes  pre- 
tended to  retain  them  in  order  to  inspire  the  people  with 
salutary  fear,  but  Tartarus  had  lost  much  of  its  terror 
for  those  it  should  have  kept  from  ill-doing. 

Is  this  to  say  that  these  ideas  no  longer  found  credence 
anywhere  ?  A  faith  which  has  long  dominated  minds  dis- 
appears hardly  and  leaves  persistent  traces  behind  it  in 
customs  and  feeling.  Thus  we  find  that,  more  or  less 
everywhere,  the  practice  was  perpetuated  of  placing  in 
the  mouth  of  the  corpse  a  piece  of  money  which  served, 
it  was  said,  to  pay  Charon  for  the  crossing  of  the  Styx.33 
Excavators  have  found  these  coins  in  many  Roman 
tombs.  But  they  are  doubtless  evidence  of  no  more  than 
a  traditional  rite  which  men  performed  without  attaching 
a  definite  meaning  to  it. 

Moreover,  the  metrical  epitaphs  continue  to  speak  of 
the  Elysian  Fields  and  of  Tartarus,  of  Styx  and  of 
Acheron ;  they  complain  of  the  cruelty  of  Pluto  who  bears 
away  mortals  before  their  time,  or  of  the  Parcae  or  Fates 
who  cut  the  thread  of  their  days ;  they  mention  the  aveng- 
ing Furies,  the  sufferings  of  Tantalus,  Sisyphus  and 
Ixion.  But  these  are  no  more  than  ready-made  formulas 
of  poetical  language,  literary  reminiscenses  or  traditional 
metaphors.  Yet  sometimes  this  infernal  mythology  is 
curiously  developed.  Thus  a  long  inscription  on  a  Roman 
tomb  describes  a  young  man  descending  from  the  ether 
in  order  to  announce  to  those  near  and  dear  to  him  that 
he  has  become  a  celestial  hero  and  has  not  to  go  to  Pluto's 
kingdom.  "I  shall  not  wend  mournfully  to  the  floods  of 

32  Plutarch,  Non  posse  suaviter  vivi  sec.  Epic,  27,  p.  1105. 

33  Cf.  Lucian,  Be  luctu,  10. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  85 

Tartarus;  I  shall  not  cross  the  waters  of  Acheron  as  a 
shade,  nor  shall  I  propel  the  dusky  boat  with  my  oar;  I 
shall  not  fear  Charon  with  his  face  of  terror,  nor  shall 
old  Minos  pass  sentence  on  me ;  I  shall  not  wander  in  the 
abode  of  gloom  nor  be  held  prisoner  on  the  bank  of  the 
fatal  waters."34  This  epitaph  dates  from  the  century  of 
Augustus,  but  did  its  author,  any  more  than  the  writers 
of  that  time,  believe  in  the  reality  of  the  beings  with 
which  he  peoples  Hades?  He  decorates  his  language  with 
a  literary  ornament  which  Christian  poetry  was  later  to 
inherit.  This  poetry  did  not  hesitate  to  employ  these 
pagan  commonplaces,  which  had  passed  from  hand  to 
hand  until  they  were  so  worn  out  that  their  first  meaning 
had  been  effaced.  The  Renaissance  and  the  age  of  modern 
classicism  were  again  to  use  and  to  abuse  them. 

The  sculpture  of  tombs  continued  in  the  same  way 
often  to  reproduce  the  ancient  models.  Sarcophagi  some- 
times show  us  the  dead  man  led  by  Hermes,  guide  of 
souls,  and  coming  into  the  presence  of  Pluto  and  Proser- 
pina.35 We  also  see  on  funeral  monuments  Charon  in  his 
boat,  the  typical  sufferings  of  Tantalus,  whose  eager  lips 
cannot  reach  the  flowing  water,  Ixion  turning  on  his  wheel, 
Sisyphus  labouring  under  the  weight  of  his  rock  and, 
above  all,  the  Danaicles  eternally  pouring  water  into  a 
perforated  vase.36  But  it  is  probable  that  these  traditional 
figures  were  repeated  without  any  very  strong  faith  being 
held  as  to  the  real  existence  of  the  personages  which  they 

34Biicheler,  1109,  v.  19-24: 

"Non  ego  Tartareas  penetrabo  tristis  ad  undas, 
Non  Acheronteis  transvehar  umbra  vadis, 
Non  ego  caeruleam  remo  pulsabo  carinam, 
Nee  te  terribilem  fronte  timebo  Charon, 
Nee  Minos  mihi  iura  dabit  grandaevus  et  atris 
Non  errabo  locis  nee  cohibebor  aquis. " 

35  See,  for  instance,  Jahresh.  Instit.  Wien,  XVII,  1914,  p.  133  ss.;  or 
Hermes,  XXXVII,  1902,  p.  121  ss. 

36  Cf.  Jahn,  Darstellungen  der  Unterwelt  auf  Sarlcophagen,  in  Ber.  Gesell- 
scliaft  Wiss.  Leipsig,  1856,  p.  267  ss.;  Eeinaeh,  Bepertoire  des  reliefs,  III, 
391 ;  Berger,  Bevue  archeol.,  3e  serie,  XXVI,  1895,  p.  71  ss. 


86  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

represented ;  indeed  it  was  proposed  only  to  show  them  as 
symbols  which  had  to  be  interpreted  allegorically. 

If  we  had  no  other  evidence  than  funeral  poetry  and 
art  of  the  persistence  of  the  beliefs  of  the  past,  the  testi- 
mony would  have  to  be  accepted  very  cautiously.  But 
other  more  convincing  proofs  assure  us  that  popular 
faith  clung,  with  characteristic  tenacity,  to  the  ancient 
conception  of  the  Inferi.  Without  believing  precisely  in 
the  strange  tortures  inflicted  on  the  wicked  heroes  of 
mythology,  the  man  in  the  street  was  still  vaguely  per- 
suaded that  the  souls  went  down  from  the  tomb  to  some 
deep  places  where  they  received  rewards  and  punish- 
ments. Suetonius37  relates  that  when  the  death  of  Tiberius 
became  known  in  Rome  the  people  "prayed  Mother  Earth 
and  the  Manes  gods  to  give  the  dead  man  no  other  dwell- 
ing than  that  of  the  impious."  The  Oriental  slaves 
brought  the  same  convictions  from  their  countries  like 
many  other  old  beliefs  which  had  faded  away  in  the  West. 
The  romancer  Heliodorus,  a  Syrian  priest,  shows  us  in 
his  novel  his  heroine  invoking  "the  demons  who  on  the 
earth  and  under  the  earth  watch  over  and  punish  un- 
righteous men, ' ,38  her  prayer  being  that,  after  the  iniqui- 
tous death  which  threatened  her,  they  might  receive  her. 
The  same  conviction  appears  in  the  funeral  inscriptions 
of  the  East.  Thus  an  epitaph  of  Elaiousa  in  Cilicia39 
adjures  "the  heavenly  god,  the  Sun,  the  Moon  and  the 
subterranean  gods  who  receive  us."  The  common  idea 
was  that  a  dead  man  can  be  excluded  from  the  dwelling 
of  the  shades  and  condemned  to  wander  miserably  on  the 
earth.  In  the  same  way  the  thought  is  often  expressed  in 
the  magic  papyri  of  Egypt  that  the  deceased  were 
plunged  into  the  dark  gulfs  underground  and  there  be- 
came demons  whom  the  wizard  called  up,  when  he  sum- 
moned them  by  his  incantations.  Even  in  Greece,  where 

37  Sueton.,  Tiberius,  75,  1 :  "  Terram  matrem  deosque  Manes  orarent,  ne 
mortuo  sedem  ullam  nisi  inter  impios  darent. " 

38  Heliodorus,  Aeth.,  VIII,  9,  p.  231,  10,  Bekker. 

39  Jahresh.  Instit.  Wien,  XVIII,  1915,  Beiblatt.,  p.  45. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  87 

rationalistic  criticism  had  penetrated  far  deeper  among 
the  people,  Plutarch,  while  he  reports  that  few  people 
were  still  really  afraid  of  Cerberus,  the  lot  of  the  Dan- 
aides  and  other  bugbears  of  Hades,  adds,  however,  that 
for  fear  of  such  pains  recourse  was  had  to  purifications 
and  initiations.40 

This  belief  in  the  existence  of  Hades,  maintained  in 
the  lower  strata  of  the  population  in  spite  of  the  inroads 
made  on  it  and  of  its  partial  supersession  by  other  doc- 
trines, was  to  acquire  new  strength  from  the  rebirth  of 
Platonism,  which  looked  upon  the  writings  of  the  "divine" 
master  as  inspired.  In  several  passages  Plato  spoke  with 
so  much  precision  of  the  dwelling  of  the  souls  in  the 
bowels  of  the  earth  that  even  the  subtlety  of  his  later 
interpreters  found  difficulty  in  giving  another  meaning  to 
his  text,  although  the  attempt  was  made  by  some  of  them. 
Therefore  effort  was  directed  to  defending  the  doctrine 
of  the  infallible  sage  by  refuting  the  objections  raised 
against  it  by  his  adversaries.  The  Stoics  had  held,  as  we 
have  seen  (p.  77),  that  the  soul,  being  a  "fiery  breath," 
had  a  natural  tendency  to  rise  in  the  air  and  could  not 
sink  into  the  ground.  But  Porphyry41  objected  that  in 
lowering  itself  from  heaven  towards  our  world  it  had  be- 
come impregnate  with  the  atmospheric  damp  and  thus 
had  grown  heavier,  and  that  if  during  its  passage  in  the 
body  it  became  laden  with  the  clay  of  a  sensual  life,  if  it 
wrapped  itself  in  a  material  cloak,  its  density  came  to  be 
such  that  it  was  dragged  down  into  the  dusky  abysses  of 
the  earth.  "It  is  true,"  says  Proclus,42  "that  the  soul  by 
force  of  its  nature  aspires  to  rise  to  the  place  which  is  its 
natural  abode,  but  when  passions  have  invaded  it  they 
weigh  it  down  and  the  savage  instincts  which  develop  in 
it  attract  it  to  the  place  to  which  they  properly  belong, 
that  is,  the  earth. ' '  According  to  Proclus,43  who  claims  to 

40  Plutarch,  Non  posse  suaviter  vivi  sec.  Epic.,  27,  p.  1105. 
iiPorph.,  Sent.,  29  (p.  13,  Mommert). 

42  Proclus,  In  Bemp.  Plat.,  II,  p.  126,  10  as.,  Kroll. 

43  Proclus,  ibid.,  II,  p.  131,  20  ss. 


88  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

interpret  Plato  faithfully,  the  soul  after  death  is  judged 
somewhere  between  the  sky  and  our  globe;  if  it  be  de- 
clared worthy  it  enjoys  a  life  of  blessedness  in  the  celes- 
tial spheres ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  deserve  penalties, 
it  is  sent  to  a  place  beneath  the  ground.  Elsewhere,  de- 
fining his  thought,44  he  affirms  that  the  various  parts  of 
Hades  and  the  subterranean  courts  and  the  rivers  of 
whose  existence  Homer  and  Plato  appraise  us,  should  not 
be  regarded  as  vain  imaginations  or  fabulous  marvels.  As 
the  souls  which  go  to  heaven  are  distributed  among 
several  and  different  resting-places,  so  we  must  believe 
that  for  souls  still  in  need  of  chastisement  and  purifica- 
tion underground  dwellings,  whither  penetrate  numerous 
effluvia  of  the  super-terrestrial  elements,  are  thrown 
open.  It  is  these  effluvia  that  are  called  " rivers' '  or  " cur- 
rents.' '  Here  too  various  classes  of  demons  hold  empire, 
some  of  them  avengers,  some  chastisers,  some  purifiers 
and  some  executioners.  Into  this  abode,  the  farthest  from 
that  of  the  gods,  the  sun's  rays  do  not  penetrate.  It  is 
filled  with  all  the  disorder  of  matter.  Therein  is  the 
prison,  guarded  by  demons  who  ensure  justice,  of  the 
guilty  souls  hidden  beneath  the  earth. 

It  is  not  by  their  faithfulness  to  Plato 's  doctrine,  which 
in  truth  they  alter,  but  by  the  mere  logic  of  their  system 
that  the  last  Greek  philosophers  are  led  to  admit  what 
their  predecessors  rejected.  Sometimes,  more  or  less  un- 
consciously, they  were  under  a  religious  influence.  The 
Platonist  Celsus  believed  in  the  eternal  pains  of  hell  but 
invoked  only  the  authority  of  "mystagogues  and  theo- 
logians" in  support  of  this  article  of  faith.45  The  opposi- 
tion between  the  obscure  retreats  of  the  Manes  and  the 
bright  dwellings  of  Olympus  is  old,  and  naturally  became 
prominent  as  the  belief  spread,  first  that  heroes,  and 
afterwards  that  all  virtuous  spirits,  rose  to  the  eternal 
spaces.46  But  the  religion  which  formulated  the  strictly 

44  Proclus,  In  Kemp.  Plat.,  I,  121,  23  ss.,  Kroll. 

45  Orig.,  Contra  Celsum,  VIII,  48  s. 
4c  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  113  ss. 


THE  NETHER  WORLD  89 

consequent  doctrine  of  an  absolute  antithesis  between  the 
luminous  kingdom  where  the  divinities  and  the  beneficent 
genii  were  seated,  and  the  dark  domain  of  the  Spirit  of 
Evil  and  his  perverse  demons,  was  Persian  Mazdeism. 
The  resplendent  heights  where  the  gods  had  their  thrones 
were  to  be  after  death  the  abode  of  those  who  had  served 
piously.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  had  contributed 
to  increase  evil  on  the  earth,  were  to  be  flung  into  the 
murky  abysses  in  which  Ahriman  reigned.  Iranian  dual- 
ism imposed  this  eschatological  conception  on  a  section  of 
Alexandrian  Judaism ;  it  was  admitted  by  many  Pythag- 
oreans, then  by  the  gnostic  sects  and  later  by  Maniche- 
ism.  But  above  all  it  was  widely  propagated  under  the 
Roman  Empire  by  the  mysteries  of  Mithras.  We  find 
then  put  forth  the  doctrine  that  the  demons  are  divided 
into  two  armies,  incessantly  at  war  with  each  other,  one 
good  and  one  evil.  The  good  army  is  subject  to  celestial 
powers  and  comes  down  to  earth  to  give  succour  and 
support  to  the  faithful.  The  evil  army  obeys  an  anti-god 
(avTiOeos)  and  issues  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  in  order 
to  scatter  misery,  sin  and  death  among  men.47  The  souls 
of  the  dead  become  like  one  or  the  other  of  these  two 
opposing  classes  of  demons.  When  they  are  virtuous  and 
pure  they  rise  to  the  luminous  ether  where  dwell  the 
divine  spirits.  If,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  vicious  and 
defiled  they  go  down  into  the  underground  depths  where 
the  Prince  of  Darkness  commands;  like  the  maleficent 
demons  who  people  this  hell  they  surfer  and  cause  to 
surfer. 

It  was  at  this  compromise  that  paganism  stopped  when 
it  reached  the  term  of  its  evolution.  Oriental  dualism  im- 
posed on  it  its  final  formula.  It  no  longer  admitted,  like 
the  ancients,  that  all  the  dead  must  go  down  from  the 
grave  into  immense  hollows  dug  in  the  bowels  of  the 
earth,  and  it  no  longer  made  the  Elysian  Fields  and  Tar- 

•*7  Porph.,  Be  abstin.,  38  ss. ;  cf.  Bousset,  Archiv  fur  Religionswiss., 
XVIII,  1915,  p.  134  ss.,  and  Andres  in  Bealencycl.,  Supplementband,  III, 
315. 


90  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

tarus  two  contiguous  domains  of  the  kingdom  of  Pluto. 
Nor  did  it  transport  them  both,  side  by  side,  as  the  pagan 
theologians  of  the  beginning  of  our  era  would  have  done, 
to  the  atmosphere  and  the  starry  spheres.  It  separated 
them  radically,  cutting  the  abode  of  the  souls  into  two 
halves,  of  which  it  placed  one  in  the  luminous  sky  and  the 
other  in  subterranean  darkness.  This  was  also  the  con- 
ception which,  after  some  hesitation,  became  generally 
accepted  by  the  Church,  and  which  for  long  centuries  was 
to  remain  the  common  faith  of  all  Christendom. 


Ill 

CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY 

THE  astral  religion  which  became  predominant  in 
the  Roman  Empire  may  be  considered  as  an  inter- 
mediary, a  connecting  link,  between  the  old  anthro- 
pomorphic paganism  and  the  Christian  faith.  Instead  of 
moral — or,  if  you  prefer,  immoral — beings,  stronger  than 
man  but  subject  to  all  the  passions  of  man,  it  taught  the 
adoration  of  the  heavenly  powers  who  act  on  nature, 
and  so  led  mankind  to  the  worship  of  the  Power  who  is 
beyond  the  heavens.  This  influence  of  the  astral  cults  of 
the  East  can  be  clearly  perceived  in  the  evolution  of  the 
ideas  as  to  future  life,  and  this  above  all  constitutes  the 
historical  importance  of  the  subject  which  I  venture  to 
treat  in  this  lecture. 

Beliefs  which  are  spread  among  many  peoples  of  the 
world  relate  the  immortality  of  the  soul  to  the  heavenly 
bodies.  It  was  for  long  naively  imagined  that  a  new  sun 
was  created  every  evening,  or  at  least  every  winter,  and 
a  new  moon  born  each  month,  and  traces  of  this  primitive 
idea  survived  in  the  religion  of  antiquity  and  persist  even 
in  our  modern  speech.  But  when  it  was  realised  that  the 
same  celestial  luminaries  reappeared  and  resumed  their 
ardour  after  their  fires  had  died  and  they  had  ceased  to 
shine,  that  the  stars  which  were  lit  at  sunset  were  those 
which  had  been  extinguished  at  dawn,  their  lot  was 
related  to  that  of  man,  destined  like  them  to  be  reborn, 
after  death,  to  a  new  life.  Various  savage  tribes  thus 
associate  the  heavenly  bodies,  and  especially  the  moon, 
with  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  The  wan  circle  which 
sheds  its  vague  light  in  the  darkness  of  night  causes 
phantoms  to  appear  to  haunt  vigils  and  dreams,  and  is 


92  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

therefore  the  power  which  presides  over  life  beyond  the 
tomb.  Among  the  Greeks  of  the  most  ancient  period 
Hecate  was  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  goddess  of  the 
moon,  the  summoner  of  ghosts  and  the  qneen  of  the  infer- 
nal realm.  In  the  East  astrological  ideas  mingled  with 
this  mythology.  It  was  taught  that  the  moon's  cold  and 
damp  rays  corrupted  the  flesh  of  the  dead  and  thus  de- 
tached from  it  the  soul  which  finally  abandoned  the 
corpse.  The  Syrians,  at  the  critical  times  in  which  the 
moonbeams  exercised  a  more  active  influence  on  this 
separation,  offered  sacrifices  on  tombs,  and  the  threefold 
commemoration  of  the  dead  on  the  third,  the  seventh  and 
the  fortieth  day  in  a  part  of  the  Eastern  Church  had  its 
earliest  origin  in  these  offerings  of  the  sidereal  cults.1 

There  was  also  a  very  widely  held  belief,  which  has 
survived  in  European  folk-lore,  that  each  man  has  his 
star  in  the  sky.  This  star  is  dazzling  if  his  lot  be  brilliant, 
pale  if  his  state  of  life  be  humble.  It  is  lit  at  his  birth  and 
falls  when  he  dies.  The  fall  of  a  shooting  star  therefore 
denotes  a  person's  death.  This  popular  idea  existed  in 
antiquity.  Pliny  the  Naturalist  reports  it,  although  he 
denies  its  truth,2  and  it  was  again  combated  in  the  fifth 
century  by  Eusebius  of  Alexandria.  "Were  there  then 
only  two  stars  in  the  time  of  Adam  and  Eve,"  asks  the 
bishop,  "and  only  eight  after  the  Flood  when  Noah  and 
seven  other  persons  alone  were  saved  in  the  Ark?"3  The 
formulas  of  epitaphs  and  the  very  usages  of  language 
show  how  current  was  the  belief  that  each  man  was,  as  we 
still  say,  born  under  a  good  or  an  evil  star.  Astrosus  was 
the  Latin  equivalent  of  our  unlucky.  This  doctrine  of  a 
rudimentary  astrology  was  incorporated  in  the  general 
system  of  learned  genethlialogy.  Although  this  latter 
attributed  a  predominant  influence  to  the  planets  and  the 
signs  of  the  zodiac,  it  also  taught,  in  accordance  with 
popular  opinion,  that  each  of  the  most  brilliant  stars 

i  Cf.  Comptes  rendus  Acad.  Inscriptions,  1918,  p.  278  ss. 

2  Pliny,  H.  N.,  II,  8,  §  28. 

s  Eusebius  Alex.,  in  Pair.  Graeca,  LXXXVI,  1,  p.  453. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  93 

(\afjL7Tpol  ao-repe?)  ensures  riches,  power  and  glory  to  the 
newly  born  child,  if  it  be  in  a  favourable  position  at  his 
birth.4 

But  side  by  side  with  this  general  conception  of  a  rela- 
tion between  the  life  of  the  stars  and  that  of  men,  a  much 
more  precise  idea  is  met  with  from  the  first.  The  soul  was, 
as  we  shall  see,5  often  conceived  by  the  ancients  as  a  bird 
preparing  for  flight.  Where  would  it  alight  when  it  had 
passed  through  the  air  except  on  the  heavenly  bodies 
which  were  still  imagined  as  quite  near  the  earth?  The 
paintings  on  an  Egyptian  tomb  of  a  late  period,  found  at 
Athribis,  show  us  the  soul  of  the  dead  man  fluttering 
with  those  others  like  him  in  the  midst  of  the  constella- 
tions.6 

The  belief  was  widely  spread  that  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  went  to  inhabit  the  moon.  In  the  East  this  faith 
retained  a  very  crude  form  which  certainly  went  back  to 
a  most  primitive  paganism.  We  find  it  in  India  as  well  as 
in  Manicheism,  which  arose  in  Mesopotamia  in  the  third 
century,  but  which  admitted  many  ancient  traditions  into 
its  doctrine.  "All  who  leave  the  earth,"  says  an  Upani- 
shad,  "go  to  the  moon,  which  is  swollen  by  their  breath 
during  the  first  half  of  the  month.' '  The  Manicheans  simi- 
larly affirmed  that  when  the  moon  was  in  the  crescent  its 
circumference  was  swelled  by  souls,  conceived  as  lumi- 
nous, which  it  drew  up  from  the  earth,  and  that  when  it  was 
waning  it  transferred  these  souls  to  the  sun.  Using  an 
idea  much  earlier  than  his  time,7  Mani  also  stated  that  the 
boat  of  the  moon,  which  plied  in  the  sky,  received  a  load 
of  souls  which  every  month  it  transferred  to  the  sun's 
larger  vessel.  The  association  established  in  Syro-Punic 
religions  between  the  moon  and  the  idea  of  immortality 
is  marked  by  the  abundance  in  Africa  of  funeral  monu- 
ments bearing  the  symbol  of  the  crescent,  either  alone  or 

4  Cat.  codd.  astrol.  Graec,  V,  pars.  1,  p.  196  ss. 

5  See  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  157. 

6  Flinders  Petrie,  Athribis,  London,  1908  (52  A.  B.). 
»  Cf.  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  154. 


94  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

associated  with  the  circle  of  the  sun  and  the  star  of 
Venus.8  These  astral  symbols  are  identical  with  those 
already  used  by  the  Babylonians.  But  it  is  not  only  among 
the  Semitic  peoples  that  we  find  the  crescent  on  tombs, 
either  alone  or  accompanied  by  other  figures :  it  is  of  fre- 
quent occurrence,  notably  in  Celtic  countries.  Possibly 
the  Druids  placed  in  the  moon  the  other  world  where  men 
pursued  an  existence  uninterrupted  by  death. 

As  for  the  sun,  the  idea  most  commonly  accepted  was 
that  the  dead  accompanied  him  on  his  course  and  went 
down  with  him  in  the  west  to  an  underground  world. 
There,  during  the  night,  this  enfeebled  heavenly  body 
recovered  his  strength,  and  there  the  dead  too  were 
revived.  The  power  of  this  faith  in  ancient  Egypt  is 
known:  the  souls  embarked  on  the  boat  of  Ra,  and  with 
him,  after  they  had  accomplished  the  circle  of  the 
heavens,  went  down  through  a  crevice  of  the  earth  or  be- 
yond the  ocean.  This  was  the  first  origin  of  the  role  of 
"psychopomp"  which  we  shall  find  attributed  to  the  solar 
god. 

Finally  many  peoples  believed  that  souls,  after  plying 
through  air  and  space,  inhabited  the  sky  in  the  form  of 
brilliant  stars.  The  multitude  of  the  stars  scintillating  in 
the  firmament  was  that  of  the  innumerable  spirits  who 
had  left  the  world.  They  pressed  in  a  dense  crowd,  espe- 
cially in  the  long  luminous  track  of  the  Milky  Way,  which 
was,  par  excellence,  the  dwelling  of  the  dead.  Other  tradi- 
tions saw  in  this  band  across  the  sky  the  highroad  which 
the  dead  travelled  to  gain  the  summit  of  the  world.9  A 
vestige  of  this  ingenuous  conception  is  retained  in  the 
very  name, i  i  Milky  Way. ' ' 


These  ideas  as  to  the  lot  of  the  soul  after  death,  which 
were  spread  among  a  number  of  different  peoples,  may 

s  Toutain,  Bevue  des  etudes  anciennes,  XIII,  1911,  p.  166  ss. ;   cf.  ibid., 
p.  379  s. 

9  See  below,  p.  104,  and  Lecture  VI,  p.  153. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  95 

also  have  existed  in  primitive  Greece  but  we  have  no 
proof  that  they  were  current  there.  As  the  Hellenes 
granted  to  the  stars  only  a  restricted  and  secondary  place 
in  their  anthropomorphic  religion,  so  in  early  times  they 
had  no  belief,  or  scarcely  any,  in  the  ascent  of  souls  to  the 
starry  sky.  This  doctrine  was  entirely  strange  even  to  the 
earliest  Ionian  thinkers.  Recent  research  has  made  it 
more  and  more  probable  that  these  conceptions  were  in- 
troduced into  Greece  from  the  East,  where  astrolatry  was 
predominant.10  Pausanias11  claimed  to  know  that  the  Chal- 
deans and  the  Magi  of  India  were  the  first  to  assert  that 
the  human  soul  is  immortal,  and  that  they  convinced  the 
Hellenes,  and  in  particular  Plato,  of  this  doctrine.  Such 
an  affirmation,  in  this  form,  is  certainly  false,  but  it  con- 
tains an  element  of  truth.  The  tenet  of  astral  immortality 
is  ancient  in  the  East:  it  probably  took  form  in  Baby- 
lon about  the  sixth  century,  when  Persian  Mazdeism, 
which  believed  that  the  righteous  were  lifted  up  to  the 
luminous  dwelling  of  the  gods,  came  into  contact  with  the 
sidereal  religion  of  the  Chaldeans.  It  was  propagated  in 
Greece  especially  by  the  Pythagoreans,  for  whom  the  soul 
had  a  celestial  origin,  being,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  24),  a 
fiery  principle,  a  particle  of  the  ether  which  lights  the 
divine  fires  of  heaven.  This  spark,  which  descended  at 
birth  in  the  body,  which  it  heated  and  animated, 
reascended  after  death  to  the  upper  regions,  whence  it 
had  come  forth.  Aristophanes  in  his  Peace12  greets  the 
apparition  of  a  new  star,  that  of  the  Pythagorean  poet, 
Ion  of  Chios,  who  had  recently  died,  asking  ironically  if 
it  be  not  true  that  "when  someone  dies  he  becomes  like 
the  stars  in  the  air."  This  is  the  most  ancient  precisely 
dated  mention  of  stellar  immortality  (421  B.  C),  and  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  the  doctrine  was  that  of  Ion  him- 
self. Plato  received  it  from  the  Pythagoreans  and  makes 
very  clear  allusions  to  it. 

io  E.  Pfeiffer,  Studien  zum  antiken  Sternglauben,  1916,  p.  113  ss. 

ii  Pausanias,  IV,  32,  4. 

12  Aristophanes,  Peace,  832  ss. 


96  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

The  fundamental  idea  on  which  it  rests,  the  idea  that 
the  psychic  essence  is  the  same  as  the  fire  of  the  heavenly- 
bodies,  is  at  the  root  of  all  oriental  astrology,  which 
claims  to  explain  by  astral  influence  the  formation  of 
character.  This  idea  of  a  relationship  (avyyeveia)  between 
the  soul  and  the  stars  does  not  in  Greece  belong  to  the 
old  basic  popular  beliefs.  It  was  introduced  thither  by  the 
philosophers,  who,  as  we  shall  see,  drew  from  it  very  im- 
portant theological  conclusions.  According  to  them,  it 
was  owing  to  this  identity  of  nature  that  the  soul  was 
capable  of  knowing  the  gods  and  of  aspiring  to  join 
them.13  This  doctrine  took  on  new  power  when  astrology 
succeeded  in  imposing  itself  on  the  Alexandrian  world, 
and  it  is  significant  that  we  find  it  clearly  formulated  by 
an  adept  of  this  pseudo  science,  the  famous  Hipparchus, 
in  the  second  century  before  our  era.  "  Hipparchus, ' '  says 
Pliny,14  "will  never  receive  all  the  praise  he  deserves, 
since  no  one  has  better  established  the  relation  between 
man  and  the  stars,  or  shown  more  clearly  that  our  souls 
are  particles  of  the  heavenly  fire."  Pythagorism  and 
Stoicism,  and  after  them  the  Syrian  and  Persian  mys- 
teries, were  to  popularise  this  conception  throughout  the 
ancient  world.  In  certain  regions,  as  in  Gaul,  it  undoubt- 
edly found  pre-existing  native  beliefs  with  which  it  com- 
bined, and  in  religion  and  among  theologians  it  assumed 
multiple  forms.  We  shall  try  to  distinguish  its  chief 
aspects,  dealing  successively  with  lunar,  solar  and  stellar 
immortality. 


The  Pythagoreans,  perhaps  transforming  a  belief  of 
the  Greek  people  as  to  Selene's  role,  but  more  probably 
inspired  by  Oriental  speculations,  held  that  souls,  when 
they  had  been  purified  by  air,  went  to  dwell  in  the  moon. 
To  the  question,  "What  are  the  Isles  of  the  Blessed ?" 
the  orthodox  doctrine  of  the  sect  answered,  "The  sun 

13  See  below,  Lecture  IV,  p.  Ill ;  cf.  Introd.,  p.  24. 

14  Pliny,  H.  N.,  II,  26,  §  95. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  97 

and  the  moon. ' n5  For  them  the  heavenly  bodies  were  mov- 
ing islands  washed  by  a  lnminons  fluid,  which  their  swift 
motion  caused  to  sonnd  about  them.  These  thinkers,  who 
debated  all  the  scientific  hypotheses,  accepted  the  plu- 
rality of  worlds.  The  heavenly  bodies  were  other  earths 
surrounded  by  air  and  rolling  in  the  boundless  ether.  The 
moon  in  particular  was  designated  as  the  "ethereal"  or 
< '  Olympic  earth, ' '  and  in  the  moon  lay  the  Elysian  Fields, 
the  meadows  of  Hades,  in  which  the  shades  of  the  heroes 
rested.  Pythagoras  himself,  promoted  to  the  rank  of  an 
immortal  spirit,  rejoiced  there  among  the  sages.  Per- 
sephone, assimilated  to  Artemis,  reigned  over  this  king- 
dom. Did  not  the  moon,  like  her,  transfer  itself  alternately 
above  and  below  the  earth?  The  planets  were  this  hunt- 
ress's hounds  which,  ever  in  chase,  were  scouring  the 
fields  of  space  around  her  in  every  direction. 

The  authors  of  Pythagorean  apocalypses  peopled  the 
mountains  and  valleys  of  the  moon  with  fantastic  animals, 
stronger  than  ours,  and  with  strange  plants,  more  vigor- 
ous than  those  of  our  globe.  The  inhabitants  of  the  moon, 
fed  on  the  vapours  of  the  atmosphere,  were  not  liable  to 
human  needs.  In  his  "True  Histories,"  Lucian16  parodied 
these  mad  imaginings  with  comic  exaggeration  and 
ludicrous  obscenity. 

A  curious  fragment  of  Castor  of  Ehodes  gives  an  in- 
stance of  an  unexpected  application  of  these  beliefs.17 
This  historian,  who  lived  at  the  end  of  the  Eepublic,  had 
the  idea  of  interpreting  Eoman  customs  by  the  Pythago- 
rean doctrines  which  Nigidius  Figulus  and  his  circle  of 
theosophists  had  brought  back  into  fashion  (p.  22).  In 
particular  he  explained  by  this  method  the  ivory  lunulae 
(crescents)  which  decorated  the  senators'  shoes.  They 
recalled,  he  says,  that  noble  souls  inhabited  the  moon 
after  death  and  trod  on  its  soil. 

is  Jamblich.,  Vit.  Pyth.,  XVIII,  82=Diels,  VorsoTcratiker,  Is,  p.  358,  18 ; 
of.  Plut,  Be  genio  Socr.,  22,  p.  590  C ;  Hierocles,  In  Aur.  carm.,  end. 
is  Lucian,  Verae  hist.,  I,  10  ss. 
it  Castor,  f  ragm.  24  and  25,  Muller. 


98  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

The  eclectic  Stoics  of  the  same  period,  and  especially 
Posidonius  of  Apamea,  gave  this  lunar  eschatology  a 
place  in  their  system,  and  undertook  to  justify  it  by  the 
physical  doctrines  of  the  Porch.  According  to  them, 
souls,  which  are  a  burning  breath,  rose  through  the  air 
towards  the  fires  of  the  sky,  in  virtue  of  their  lightness.18 
When  they  reached  the  upper  zone,  they  found  in  the 
ether  about  the  moon  surroundings  like  their  own  essence 
and  remained  there  in  equilibrium.  Conceived  as  material 
and  as  circular  in  form,  they  were,  like  the  heavenly 
bodies,  nourished  by  the  exhalations  which  arose  from 
the  soil  and  the  waters.  These  innumerable  globes  of  a 
fire  endowed  with  intelligence  formed  an  animated  chorus 
about  the  divine  luminary  of  night.  The  Elysian  Fields 
did  not,  in  this  theory,  lie  in  the  moon  itself,  which  was  no 
longer  an  earth  inhabited  by  fantastic  beings,  but  in  the 
pure  air  about  the  moon  whither  penetrated  only  souls  no 
less  pure.  This  idea  was  to  last  until  the  end  of  paganism, 
although  other  eschatological  doctrines  then  met  with 
more  favour.  The  emperor  Julian  in  the  beginning  of  his 
satire  on  the  Caesars  describes  them  as  invited  to  a  ban- 
quet held,  as  was  proper,  on  a  lower  level  than  the  feast 
of  the  gods,  who  met  at  the  summit  of  heaven.  "It  seemed 
fitting/ '  he  says,19  "that  the  emperors  should  dine  in  the 
upper  air  just  below  the  moon.  The  lightness  of  the  bodies 
with  which  they  had  been  invested  and  also  the  revolu- 
tions of  the  moon  sustained  them. ' ' 

The  zone  of  the  moon,  the  lowest  of  the  seven  planetary 
spheres,  in  which  the  serene  ether  touches  our  own  foggy 
atmosphere,  is  the  frontier  between  the  world  of  the  gods 
and  that  of  men,  the  border  between  immortality  and 
the  generated,  the  line  of  demarcation  between  the  life  of 
blessedness  and  the  death  which  our  earthly  existence 
really  is.  Aristotle  had  already  noted  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  halves  of  the  universe,  the  one  active  and 
the  other  passive,  the  heavens  formed  of  unalterable 

is  See  Introd.,  p.  29,  and  Lecture  VI,  p.  162. 
is  Julian,  Caes.,  p.  307  c. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  99 

ether  and  subject  neither  to  progress  nor  to  corruption, 
and  our  sublunary  world  composed  of  four  elements,  our 
world  in  which  all  is  born,  is  transformed  and  dies.  Neo- 
Pythagoreans  and  Neo-Stoics  liked,  in  insisting  on  this 
opposition,  to  show  the  contrast  between  the  splendour 
and  the  darkness,  the  serenity  and  the  trouble,  the  con- 
stancy and  the  mutability,  the  truth  and  the  error,  the 
happiness  and  the  misery,  the  peace  and  the  war,  which 
reigned  respectively  in  the  dwelling  of  the  gods  and  in 
the  abode  of  men,  whither  souls  descending  to  earth  pene- 
trated so  soon  as  they  had  crossed  the  circle  of  the 
moon.  In  imitation  of  Plato20  this  sublunary  world  is 
shown  as  a  dark  cave  in  which  the  captive  souls,  plunged 
in  obscurity,  aspire  to  see  again  the  light  from  on  high. 

The  funeral  monuments  of  the  imperial  period  have 
retained  numerous  traces  of  these  beliefs.  As  we  have 
already  said  (p.  94),  the  crescent  often  appears  on  them, 
either  alone  or  together  with  other  symbols.  Other  tomb- 
stones are  still  more  expressive.  A  Roman  relief,  pre- 
served in  Copenhagen,  is  particularly  characteristic :  the 
bust  of  a  little  girl  appears  on  it  placed  on  a  large  cres- 
cent and  surrounded  by  seven  stars.21  On  this  an  inscrip- 
tion recently  found  at  Didyma  might  serve  as  a  com- 
mentary: "Standing  before  this  tomb,  look  at  young 
Choro,  virgin  daughter  of  Diognetos.  Hades  has  placed 
her  in  the  seventh  circle,"22  that  is,  in  the  circle  of  the 
moon,  which  is  the  lowest  of  the  seven  planets. 

We  see  that  philosophy  and  physics  had  united  to 
transform  the  old  belief  in  the  ascent  of  souls  to  the 
moon.  The  intervention  of  theories  claiming  to  explain 
the  systems  of  the  world  is  still  more  marked  in  the  other 
doctrines   of  astral  immortality.   It  was  this  blending 

20  Plato,  Sep.,  VII,  p.  514. 

2i  Reproduced  in  my  Etudes  syriennes,  1917,  p.  87;  cf.  below,  p.  139. 

22Wiegand,  in  AbMndl.  Akad.  Berlin,  1908,  Bericht,  VI,  p.  46: 
Eras  irpocrde  TVfx/3ov  54pK€  tt\v  &vvp.<pov 
Kbpr)v  AioyvrjToio  vtjirirjv  Xopovv, 
f)v  drJKev  "AtSTjs  ev  kvkKokjiv  e(386p.ois.  .  .  . 


100  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

which  made  them  strong  enough  to  impose  themselves  on 
the  minds  of  men.  By  their  agreement  with  contemporary 
science,  they  satisfied  reason  and  faith  at  the  same  time. 
But  as  all  this  theology  really  rested  on  a  wrong  cos- 
mography, its  lot  was  bound  up  with  that  of  a  false  con- 
ception of  the  universe,  and  the  two  fell  together. 
***** 

The  first  of  these  doctrines  appears  to  us  the  most 
reasonable  because  it  is  founded  on  the  primordial  role 
of  the  sun  in  our  world.  It  was  born  in  the  East  when  the 
Chaldean  priests  deprived  the  moon  of  the  pre-eminence 
originally  ascribed  to  it,  and  recognised  the  unequalled 
importance  of  the  sun  in  the  cosmic  system.23  These 
astronomical  theologians  deduced  from  this  recognition 
a  theory  which  includes  something  like  an  anticipation  of 
universal  gravitation,  and  which  was  to  prove  seductive 
both  by  its  greatness  and  by  its  logic.  It  spread  through 
the  ancient  world  in  the  second  and  first  centuries  B.  C. 
There  are  some  signs  that  the  Pythagoreans,  who  were 
much  addicted  to  the  study  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  were 
the  first  to  adopt  it,  and  with  the  propagation  of  Oriental 
astrology  it  obtained  a  wide  diffusion  in  the  West. 

The  sun,  placed  in  the  fourth  rank  or  the  middle  of  the 
planetary  spheres,24  like  a  king  surrounded  by  his  guards, 
was  believed  alternately  to  attract  and  repel  the  other 
celestial  bodies  by  the  force  of  his  heat,  and  to  regulate 
their  harmonious  movements  as  the  coryphaeus  directed 
the  evolutions  of  a  chorus.  But  since  the  stars  were 
looked  upon  as  the  authors  of  all  the  physical  and  moral 
phenomena  of  the  earth,  he  who  determined  the  com- 
plicated play  of  their  revolutions  was  the  arbiter  of  des- 
tinies, the  master  of  all  nature.  Placed  at  the  centre  of 
the  great  cosmic  organism,  he  animated  it  to  its  utmost 
limits,  and  was  often  called  the  " heart  of  the  world' ' 
whither  its  heat  radiated. 

23  See  La  theologie  solaire  du  paganisme  romain  in  Mem.  sav.  Strangers 
Acad.  Inscr.,  XII,  1909,  p.  449  ss. 

24  Cf.  Introd.,  p.  28. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  101 

But  this  well-ordered  universe  could  not  be  directed 
by  a  blind  force,  and  therefore  the  sun  was  an  "intelli- 
gent light"  ((/»w5  voepov).  The  pagan  theologians  looked 
upon  him  as  the  directive  reason  of  the  world  {mens 
mundi  et  temper atio).  The  Pythagoreans  saw  in  him 
Apollo  Musagetes,  the  leader  of  the  chorus  of  the  Muses, 
who  were  placed  in  the  nine  circles  of  the  world  and 
whose  accord  produced  the  harmony  of  the  spheres.  Thus 
he  became  the  creator  of  individual  reason  and  director 
of  the  human  microcosm.  The  author  of  generation,  he 
presided  over  the  birth  of  souls,  while  bodies  developed 
under  the  influence  of  the  moon.  The  radiant  sun  con- 
stantly sent  down  sparkles  from  his  flaming  circle  to  the 
beings  he  animated.  The  vital  principle  which  nourished 
men's  material  envelope  and  caused  its  growth  was  lunar, 
but  the  sun  produced  reason. 

Inversely,  when  death  had  dissolved  the  elements  which 
formed  the  human  composite,  when  the  soul  had  left  the 
carnal  prison  which  enclosed  it,  the  sun  once  more  drew 
it  to  himself.  As  his  ardent  heat  caused  vapours  and 
clouds  to  rise  from  the  earth  and  the  seas,  so  he  brought 
back  to  himself  the  invisible  essence  which  animated  the 
body.  He  exercised  on  the  earth  both  a  physical  and  a 
psychical  attraction.  Human  reason  reascended  to  its 
original  source  and  returned  to  its  divine  home.  The  rays 
of  the  god  were  the  vehicles  of  souls  when  they  rose  aloft 
to  the  higher  regions.25  He  was  the  anagogue  (avayoy 
yevs)  who  withdrew  spirits  from  matter  which  soiled 
them. 

Just  as  he  sent  the  planets  away  from  him  and  brought 
them  back  by  a  series  of  emissions  and  absorptions,  so  he 
caused  his  burning  effluvia  to  descend  to  the  beings  whom 
he  called  to  life,  and  so  he  gathered  them  after  their  death 
that  they  might  rise  to  him  once  more.  Thus  a  cycle  of 
migrations  caused  souls  to  circulate  between  the  sky  and 
the  earth,  as  the  stars  alternately  drew  away  from  and 
returned  to  the  radiant  focus,  heart  and  spirit  of  the 

25  See  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  160. 


102  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

Great  All,  which  called  forth  and  directed  their  eternal 
revolutions.  It  is  easy  to  understand  how  this  coherent 
and,  it  may  be  said,  magnificent  theology,  founded  on  the 
discoveries  of  ancient  astronomy  at  its  zenith,  imposed 
on  Roman  paganism  the  cult  of  the  invincible  Sun,  the 
master  of  all  nature,  the  creator  and  saviour  of  man. 

A  mass  of  literary  evidence  and  a  number  of  figured 
monuments  prove  how  powerful  became,  under  the 
Roman  Empire,  the  belief  that  the  sun  was  the  god  of  the 
dead.  Old  mythological  traditions  combined  with  Chal- 
dean theology  and  were  propagated  with  the  Eastern  reli- 
gions. It  was  imagined  that  the  deceased,  and  in  particular 
the  emperors,  were  borne  to  heaven  on  the  chariot  of 
Helios,  or  that  the  eagle,  the  king  of  the  birds  and  the 
servant  of  the  sovereign  sun,  carried  off  their  souls  to 
bear  them  to  his  master.  Elsewhere  it  was  the  griffin  of 
Apollo  or  the  solar  phoenix  who  was  the  bearer  of  the 
dead  or  the  symbol  of  immortality.  A  funeral  altar  of 
Rome  even  bears  the  characteristic  inscription,  "Sol  me 
rapuit,"  "the  Sun  has  seized  me  up."26 

You  will  probably  ask  how  men  succeeded  in  reconcil- 
ing this  solar  immortality  with  the  doctrine  which  made 
the  moon  the  abode  of  the  dead.  The  Greeks,  following 
the  Orientals,  had  been  able  to  make  a  lunar-solar  calen- 
dar, and  they  also  constructed  an  eschatology  in  which 
the  two  great  heavenly  bodies  both  played  part.  They 
were  the  two  divinities  whose  help  the  priests  promised 
to  "those  who  were  about  to  die."27  This  eschatology  is 
founded  on  the  astrological  idea  that  the  moon  presides 
over  physical  life,  over  the  formation  and  decomposition 
of  bodies,  but  that  the  sun  is  the  author  of  intellectual  life 
and  the  master  of  reason.  The  doctrine  also  includes  the 
belief  we  have  already  explained  elsewhere,28  that  when 
souls  leave  the  earth,  they  are  still  surrounded  by  a  subtle 

26  CIL,  VI,  29954;  see  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  157  ss. 

27  Commodian,  VIII,  10 :  ' '  Sacerdotes  .  .  .  numina  qui  dieunt  aliquid 
morituro  prodesse. " 

28  See  Introd.,  p.  24  s.;  cf.  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  167. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  103 

fluid  which  retains  the  appearance  of  the  persons  whom 
they  formerly  animated.  The  pagan  theologians  thus  ad- 
mitted that  the  souls  which  came  down  to  earth  assumed 
in  the  sphere  of  the  moon  and  in  the  atmosphere  these 
aerial  bodies  which  were  regarded  as  the  seat  of  the  vital 
principle.  Inversely,  when  they  rose  again  to  heaven,  the 
function  of  the  moon  was  to  dissolve  and  to  receive  these 
light  envelopes,  as  on  earth  its  damp  rays  provoked  the 
corruption  of  the  corpse.  The  soul,  thus  becoming  pure 
reason  (vovs),  ascended  to  the  sun,  the  source  of  all  intel- 
ligence. According  to  others  the  formation  of  the  soul's 
integument  was  begun  and  its  reabsorption  was  com- 
pleted in  the  planetary  spheres,  and  this  is  why  the  Neo- 
Platonist  Jamblichus29  placed  the  Hades  of  mythology  be- 
tween the  sun  and  the  moon.  These  theories  are  not  the 
product  of  pure  philosophical  speculations,  but  have  their 
roots  in  the  old  astral  religion  of  the  Semites.  The  mys- 
teries of  Mithras,  the  Chaldaic  oracles,  and  above  all 
Manicheism  shared  the  belief  in  a  lunar-solar  immor- 
tality of  which  the  source  certainly  goes  back  to  the  tenets 
of  the  "Chaldean"  priests. 


Solar  immortality  is  a  learned  doctrine,  the  fruit  of  the 
astronomical  theories  which  made  the  king-star  the  centre 
and  the  master  of  the  universe.  It  was  such  as  to  find 
acceptance  with  theologians  and  philosophers  and  to  be 
spread  by  the  Oriental  mysteries.  But  it  never  succeeded 
in  eliminating  or  overshadowing  the  old  popular  idea 
that  the  souls  of  the  dead  dwell  in  the  midst  of  the 
glittering  constellations.  A  trace  of  the  double  conception 
is  found  in  the  Stoic  school.  For  certain  of  the  masters 
of  this  school  the  directing  reason  of  the  world,  the 
rjyefjLoviKov,  has  its  principal  seat  in  the  sun,  for  others 
in  the  sphere  of  the  fixed  stars.  In  the  same  way  the  poets, 
Lucan  addressing  Nero,  and  Statius  addressing  Domi- 
tian,  hesitatingly  ask  if  these  emperors  will  ride  in  the 

ssLydus,  Be  mensib.,  IV,  149  (p.  167,  25,  Wiinsch.). 


104  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

flaming  chariot  of  Phoebus  or  if  they  will  assume  Jupi- 
ter's sceptre  in  the  highest  heaven.30  The  Neo-Pythago- 
reans  admitted  that  souls  could  rise  to  the  Most  High 
(cts  tov  "Txjjkttov),  that  is  to  say,  to  the  supreme  God  who 
was  enthroned  at  the  summit  of  the  world.31  It  was,  more- 
over, very  anciently  held  among  the  Greeks  that  Olympus 
was  in  the  outer  circle  enveloping  the  world,  and  until  the 
end  of  antiquity  we  find  the  Elysian  Fields  were  trans- 
ported to  the  zone  of  the  constellations  and  in  particular 
to  the  Milky  Way.  This  is,  for  instance,  the  doctrine  of 
Cicero  as  shown  in  the  dream  of  Scipio. 

So  the  old  popular  idea  that  the  soul  became  a  star, 
which  in  Greece  was  accepted  by  the  ancient  Pythag- 
oreans, still  subsisted.  According  to  mythology  this  was 
the  happy  lot  reserved  for  heroes.  We  have  whole  books 
which  tell  us  how  these  heroes  at  the  end  of  their  career 
were  transformed  to  brilliant  stars  in  reward  for  their 
exploits.  "Catasterism"  draws  a  moral  conclusion  from 
ancient  tales.  Hercules,  Castor  and  Pollux,  Perseus  and 
Andromeda  and  many  others  had  deserved  such  meta- 
morphosis. It  did  not  therefore  seem  bold  to  assign  to 
the  eminent  men  of  the  present  the  same  destiny  as  to  the 
great  figures  of  the  past,  and  no  one  was  shocked  by  the 
supposition  that  their  divine  spirits  might  be  added  to 
the  number  of  the  "visible  gods."  This  was,  in  particular, 
a  lot  worthy  of  the  princes  who  had  deserved  apotheosis. 
At  the  death  of  Caesar  a  comet  appeared.  It  was  thought 
to  be  the  dictator's  soul  which  had  been  received  among 
the  Immortals,  and  Ovid32  does  not  hesitate  to  show  us 
Venus  descending,  invisible,  into  the  senate,  snatching 
this  soul  from  the  pierced  body  and  bearing  it  aloft  to  the 
sky.  There  Venus  feels  the  soul  become  inflamed  and  sees 
it  escape  from  her  breast  to  fly  beyond  the  moon  and  turn 
into  a  trailing  comet.  Hadrian,  in  his  grief  for  the  death 

soLucan,  Phars.,  I,  45;  Statius,  Theb.,  I,  27;  cf.  my  Mudes  syriennes, 
1917,  p.  97  s. 

3i  Diog.  Laert.,  VIII,  31. 

32  Ovid,  Metam.,  XV,  840  ss. ;  cf.  749. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  105 

of  Antinous,  let  himself  be  persuaded  that  a  star  had  just 
appeared  which  was  the  deified  soul  of  his  favourite.33  But 
as  in  Greece  "heroification"  was  finally  awarded  by  the 
will  of  families  to  every  one  of  their  members  whose  loss 
they  mourned,  so  "catasterism"  was  in  the  end  accorded 
to  deceased  persons  of  very  moderate  deserts.  "  Nearly 
the  whole  heaven/ '  says  Cicero,  "is  filled  with  man- 
kind."34 In  an  inscription  of  Amorgos35  a  young  man,  car- 
ried off  by  the  Fates  at  the  age  of  twenty,  thus  addresses 
his  mother:  "Weep  not;  for  of  what  use  is  weeping? 
Rather  venerate  me,  for  I  am  now  a  divine  star  which 
shows  itself  at  sunset. ' '  And  at  Miletus36  a  child  of  eight 
years  old,  whom  Hermes  has  led  to  Olympus,  contem- 
plates the  ether  and  shines  in  the  midst  of  the  stars, 
"rising  every  evening  to  the  horn  of  the  Goat.  By  the 
favour  of  the  gods  he  protects  the  young  boys  who  were 
his  playfellows  in  the  rude  palaestrae." 

Epitaphs  so  precise  in  expression  are  exceptional.  On 
the  other  hand,  numerous  epigraphic  and  literary  texts 
declare  that  the  soul  of  some  dead  person  has  risen  to 
the  stars  to  live  there  with  the  Immortals,  but  leave  the 
position  of  this  soul  undetermined.  It  is  stated  to  have 
flown  towards  the  vast  sky,  to  have  been  received  by  the 
ether,  to  be  living  at  the  summit  of  the  world  and  follow- 
ing the  revolutions  of  the  celestial  armies.  But  the  place 
where  the  blessed  thus  come  together,  that  one  of  the 
upper  spheres  in  which  their  meeting  takes  place,  is  left 
uncertain.  Their  dwelling  was  known  to  be  somewhere 
very  high  above  us,  but  men  did  not  willingly  venture  to 
fix  its  exact  situation. 

The  heathen  theologians  wished  however  to  bring  order 
and  precision  into  this  astral  eschatology.  As  they  had 
combined  the  doctrines  of  lunar  and  solar  immortality, 

33  Cassius,  Dio,  LXIX,  11,  4. 

34  Cic,  Tusc,  I,  12,  28:  "Totum  prope  caelum  nonne  humano  generi 
completum  est?" 

35  Bevue  de  philologie,  XXXIII,  1909,  p.  6  =  IG,  XII,  7,  123. 

36  Bevue  de  phil.,  Hid.;  cf.  Lecture  V,  p.  139. 


106  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

so  they  attempted  to  bring  both  into  agreement  with 
stellar  immortality.  When  Lucian  in  the  beginning  of  his 
"Icaromenippus"  shows  us  his  hero  passing  over  three 
thousand  stadia  from  the  earth  to  the  moon,  where  he 
makes  a  first  halt,  rising  thence  five  hundred  parasangs  to 
the  sun,  and  then  ascending  from  the  sun  to  heaven,  Jupi- 
ter 's  citadel,  through  the  space  travelled  in  a  full  day  by 
an  eagle  in  rapid  flight,  he  is  giving  us  a  humorous  parody 
of  the  journey  which  some  men  ascribed  to  souls.  This 
idea  that  the  soul  thus  rises  to  Paradise  by  three  stages 
was  widely  entertained  in  the  East,  and  it  was  notably 
held  by  Mazdeism.  A  trace  of  this  belief  seems  to  linger 
in  the  passage  of  the  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians 
in  which  Saint  Paul  tells  that  he  has  been  lifted  "to  the 
third  heaven. ' m 

The  Platonists  sometimes  adopted  the  same  conception 
and  combined  it  with  psychological  ideas,  a  development 
of  those  we  recalled  in  connection  with  solar  immortality 
(p.  103).  It  was  held  that  when  the  soul  came  down  to  earth 
it  first  received  an  ethereal  garment  of  almost  immaterial 
purity;  then,  imagination  being  added  to  reason,  a  solar 
fluid  surrounded  it;  then  a  lunar  integument  made  it 
subject  to  the  passions;  and  finally  a  carnal  body  was 
the  cause  of  its  ignorance  of  divine  truths  and  of  its 
blind  foolishness.  It  successively  lost  with  these  wrap- 
pings the  inclinations  or  faculties  which  were  bound  with 
them,  when  after  death  it  went  back  again  to  the  place  of 
its  origin.38 

The  conception  of  the  triple  ascension  of  souls  rested 
fundamentally  on  a  rudimentary  astronomy,  for  it  con- 
fused the  five  planets  with  the  fixed  stars,  discriminating 
from  both  only  the  sun  and  the  moon.  But  for  long  the 
system  which  divided  the  heavens  into  seven  superim- 
posed spheres,  enveloped  by  an  eighth  sphere  which  was 
the  limit  of  the  universe,  had  imposed  itself  not  only  on 

37  II  Cor.  12,  2. 

38  Porph.,  Sent,  292  (p.  14,  Mommert) ;  Proclus,  In  Remp.,  I,  p.  152, 
17,  Kroll;  In  Tim.,  Ill,  p.  234,  25,  Diehl. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  107 

the  learned  but  also  on  the  authors  of  pagan  apocalypses. 
The  eschatological  doctrine  which  triumphed  at  the  end 
of  paganism  is  in  agreement  with  this  theory,  generally 
admitted  by  the  science  of  the  period.  This  doctrine  is 
certainly  of  Chaldeo-Persian  origin,  and  was  spread  in 
the  first  century  especially  by  the  mysteries  of  Mithras.39 
Then,  in  the  second  century,  the  Pythagorean  Numenius 
introduced  it  into  philosophic  speculation.  Man's  soul 
was  held  to  descend  from  the  height  of  heaven  to  this 
sublunary  world,  passing  through  the  planetary  spheres, 
and  thus  at  its  birth  it  acquired  the  dispositions  and  the 
qualities  peculiar  to  each  of  these  stars.  After  death  it 
went  back  to  its  celestial  home  by  the  same  path.  Then  as 
it  traversed  the  zones  of  the  sky,  it  divested  itself  of  the 
passions  and  faculties  which  it  had  acquired  during  its 
descent  to  earth,  as  it  were  of  garments.  To  the  moon  it 
surrendered  its  vital  and  alimentary  energy,  to  Mercury 
its  cupidity,  to  Venus  its  amorous  desires,  to  the  sun  its 
intellectual  capacities,  to  Mars  its  warlike  ardour,  to 
Jupiter  its  ambitious  dreams,  to  Saturn  its  slothful  tend- 
encies. It  was  naked,  disencumbered  of  all  sensibility, 
when  it  reached  the  eighth  heaven,  there  to  enjoy,  as  a 
sublime  essence,  in  the  eternal  light  where  lived  the  gods, 
bliss  without  end. 

In  the  mysteries  of  Mithras  a  ladder  composed  of 
seven  different  metals  served  as  a  symbol  of  this  passage 
of  souls  through  the  spheres,  astrology  placing  each  of 
the  planets  in  relation  with  one  of  these  metals,  lead  with 
Saturn,  gold  with  the  sun,  silver  with  the  moon  and 
so  on.40 

But  in  opposition  to  this  pantheism  which,  while  iden- 
tifying God  with  the  universe,  placed  the  chief  home  of 
divine  energy  in  the  celestial  spheres  and  particularly 
in  the  highest  of  them,  the  sectaries  of  Plato  transported 

39  Cf.  my  Mysteries  of  Mithras,  Chicago,  1903,  p.  145;  below,  Lecture 
VI,  p.  169;  VII,  p.  187. 

40  Origen,  Contra  Celsum,  VI,  21 ;  cf.  Monum.  mysteres  de  Mithra,  I,  p. 
118. 


108  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

the  supreme  Power  beyond  the  limits  of  the  world  and 
made  of  him  a  Being  no  longer  immanent,  but  tran- 
scendent and  distinct  from  all  matter.  This  conception 
became  more  and  more  predominant  in  pagan  theology 
as  Stoicism  lost  influence  in  favour  of  Neo-Platonism. 
This  God,  "ultramundane  and  incorporeal,  father  and 
architect"  of  creation,41  had  his  seat,  it  was  thought,  in 
the  infinite  light  which  extended  beyond  the  starry 
spheres.  Religion  called  him  sometimes  the  Most  High 
("Ttyioros),  sometimes  Jupiter,  but  gave  him  at  the  same 
time  the  epithets ' '  Uppermost, "  "  Insuperable ' '  ( summus, 
exsuperantissimus).*2  It  was  this  celestial  Father  whom 
the  elect  souls  aspired  to  join,  but  only  those  who  had 
attained  to  perfection  succeeded  in  doing  so,  as  we  shall 
see  in  our  last  lecture.  The  others  stayed,  in  accordance 
with  their  degree  of  purity,  in  a  lower  zone  of  the  succes- 
sive stages  formed  by  the  atmosphere,  by  the  planetary 
circles,  and  by  the  heaven  of  the  fixed  stars,  which  were 
the  "visible  gods,"  opposed  to  the  spiritual  world.43 


This  was  the  last  conception  of  paganism  and  on  the 
whole  it  was  to  impose  itself  on  men  for  many  centuries. 
Judaism  had  already  made  concessions  to  the  astronomi- 
cal theories  of  the  "Chaldeans,"  and  had  borrowed  from 
them  the  idea  of  seven  stories  of  heavens,  an  idea  which 
we  find  developed  in  particular  in  the  apocryphal  Book 
of  Enoch.  It  also  belonged  to  Christianity  almost  from 
the  beginning,  and  the  gnostics  gave  it  a  large  place  in 
their  speculations.  But  especially  Origen,  who  borrowed 
it  directly  from  the  Greek  philosophers,  lent  the  authority 
of  his  name  to  the  doctrines  of  astral  eschatology.  Ac- 
cording to  him,  souls,  after  they  have  sojourned  in  Para- 
dise, which  he  imagined  as  a  remote  place  of  earth  where 
they  learn  terrestrial  truths,  rise  to  the  zone  of  the  air 

41  Apuleius,  De  dogm.  Plat.,  I,  11. 

42  Archiv  fur  Eeligionsw.,  IX,  1906,  p.  323  ss. 

43  See,  e.g.,  Plotin.,  Ill,  4,  6;  cf. 


CELESTIAL  IMMORTALITY  109 

and  there  understand  the  nature  of  the  beings  who  people 
this  element.  But  if  they  are  free  from  all  material  weight, 
they  cross  the  atmosphere  rapidly  and  reach  "the  dwell- 
ings of  the  heavens,"  that  is,  the  celestial  spheres.  There 
they  grasp  the  nature  of  the  stars  and  the  causes  of  their 
movements.  Finally,  when  they  have  made  such  progress 
that  they  have  become  pure  intelligences,  they  are  ad- 
mitted to  contemplate  the  reasonable  essences  face  to 
face  and  see  invisible  things,  enjoying  their  perfection. 
Although  Origen  was  condemned  by  the  Church,  his  ideas 
were  not  abolished.  Since  the  Christian  lore  adopted  the 
ancient  conception  of  the  world's  structure,  as  formulated 
by  Ptolemy,  it  had  necessarily  to  admit  that  souls 
traversed  the  planetary  circles  in  order  to  reach  that 
"supermundane  light"  in  which  they  found  perfect  beati- 
tude. Dante's  Paradise,  with  its  choirs  of  angels  and  its 
classes  of  the  blessed,  distributed  among  the  superim- 
posed spheres  of  the  heavens,  is  a  magnificent  testimony 
to  the  strength  of  the  tradition  which  antiquity  be- 
queathed to  the  Middle  Ages.  Before  this  tradition  could 
be  destroyed,  Galileo  and  Copernicus  had  to  ruin 
Ptolemy's  system  and  open  up  to  the  imagination  the 
infinite  spaces  of  a  limitless  universe. 


IV 
THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY 

A  FUNDAMENTAL  difference  distinguishes  the 
conception  of  immortality  as  it  appears  in  the 
religion  of  the  Eoman  Empire  from  our  modern 
ideas.  Immortality,  as  we  conceive  of  it,  follows  on  the 
very  nature  which  we  ascribe  to  the  human  soul.  It  is 
affirmed  by  some,  denied  by  others,  in  accordance  with  the 
character  which  each  one  attributes  to  the  principle  of 
conscious  thought,  but  whenever  credence  is  given  to  it, 
it  is  generally  supposed  to  be  absolute,  eternal,  universal. 
For  the  ancients,  on  the  other  hand,  immortality  was  no 
more  than  conditional :  it  might  not  be  perpetual  and  it 
might  not  belong  to  all  men.  According  to  the  Platonists 
the  soul,  an  incorruptible  essence,  a  principle  of  life  and 
movement,  survived  necessarily;1  according  to  the  Epi- 
cureans, being  composed  of  atoms,  it  was  dissolved  at 
the  moment  of  death.2  But  between  these  extreme  opin- 
ions of  the  philosophers,  the  religion  of  the  people 
remained  faithful  to  the  old  belief  that  the  shade  must 
be  nourished  with  offerings  and  sacrifices,  that  if  it 
lacked  sustenance  it  was  condemned  to  waste  away 
miserably.  This  conception,  like  not  a  few  others  which 
were  fading  away  in  the  West,  was  revived  when  the 
Orientals  imposed  on  the  Roman  world  their  more  primi- 
tive and  sometimes  very  crude  beliefs.  The  normal 
destiny  of  the  soul  was  therefore  to  survive  the  body  for 
a  certain  time,  then  in  its  turn  to  disappear.  A  second 
death  (  Sevrepos  6dvaro<; )  completed  the  work  of  the  first 
which  gave  the  corpse  over  to  corruption.  The  spiritual 

1  See  above,  Introd.,  pp.  6,  41. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  7. 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  111 

essence  which  had  abandoned  the  body  was  annihilated 
after  it.  Such  was  the  inevitable  necessity  imposed  on 
mankind.  Immortality  was  a  privilege  of  divinity.  The 
man  who  was  exempted  from  the  common  lot  of  his  kind 
was  therefore  the  equal  of  the  gods ;  he  had  risen  above 
his  perishable  condition  to  acquire  the  everlasting  youth 
of  the  Olympians,  the  unlimited  duration  of  the  stars 
which  travel  the  heavens,  the  eternity  of  the  Supreme 
Being. 

If  he  became  a  god  after  his  death  it  was  sometimes 
because  he  had  been  one  ever  since  his  birth.  For  men 
were  not  all  born  equal:  if  each  of  them  possessed  the 
psyche  which  nourished  and  animated  the  body,  yet  all 
men  did  not  equally  receive  the  divine  effluence  (Trvev^o) 
which  gave  reason.  This  reason,  which  distinguished  man 
from  the  beasts,  was  akin  to  the  fires  of  the  stars;  it 
established  between  man  and  heaven  a  community  of 
nature  {avyyivtia)  which  alone  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  divinity,3  the  " gnosis' '  of  God 
and  of  the  world  which  He  animated.  This  special  grace 
also  exempted  him  who  obtained  it  from  the  passions  and 
weaknesses  to  which  the  inclinations  of  the  flesh  exposed 
him.  It  made  him  pious,  temperate  and  chaste:  he  was 
holy  (sanctus).*  It  communicated  to  him  a  lucidity  and 
power  lacking  to  the  common  run  of  mortals.  He  pene- 
trated the  secrets  of  nature  and  commanded  the  elements ; 
he  received  revelations  and  was  capable  of  prophetic 
divination.  Inversely,  every  exceptional  quality  was  re- 
garded as  superhuman;  every  extraordinary  act  seemed 
a  miracle.  The  most  enlightened  spoke  merely  of  celestial 
inspiration.  "Nemo  magnus  vir  sine  quodam  adflatu 
divino,"  said  Cicero.5  The  many  saw  in  these  privileged 
beings  earthly  incarnations  of  all  the  Olympians.  From 
the  moment  of  their  appearance  on  the  earth  these  men 
were  really  gods ;  their  soul  kept  its  higher  nature  in  all 

3  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  96. 

4  Link,  Be  vocis  "  Sanctus"  usu  pagano,  Konigsberg,  1910. 
e  Cic,  De  natura  deor.,  II,  66,  §  167. 


112  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

its  purity;  it  would  indubitably  return  after  death  to  its 
place  of  origin.  Such  are  the  leading  ideas  which  explain 
the  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  heroes. 

Among  those  who  escaped  the  common  law  of  death 
because  they  were  divine,  first  of  all,  were  the  kings.  In 
all  times  kings  have  been  looked  upon  as  of  superior 
essence  to  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  the  ancient  East 
approximated  them  or  made  them  equal  to  the  heavenly 
powers.  The  Hellenistic  realms,  in  Egypt,  Syria,  Asia 
Minor,  raised  the  cult  of  the  monarch  to  the  rank  of  a 
state  institution ;  and  the  Caesars  inherited  this  homage, 
which  was  rendered  to  them  by  their  subjects  even  in 
their  lifetime,  first  in  the  East  and  then  throughout  the 
Empire.  The  powerful  chief  who  delivered  his  state 
from  the  scourge  of  invasion  and  ensured  it  peace  and 
welfare,  accomplished  a  work  which  seemed  to  be  beyond 
the  ability  of  man,  and  he  was  adored  as  a  present  god 
(im^avr)^  #eo5,  praesens  numen),  a  saviour  (acorijp).  Some- 
times the  god  incarnate  in  him  was  specified ;  and  he  was 
looked  upon  as  a  manifestation  of  Zeus,  Apollo,  or  an- 
other. Very  ancient  but  still  active  beliefs  gave  him  the 
power  to  command  nature  as  well  as  men.  If  the  fields 
were  fertile,  if  the  flocks  and  herds  had  increased,  these 
were  benefits  received  from  the  godlike  sovereign.  No 
miracle  was  beyond  his  accomplishment.  He  was  the 
providence  of  his  people,  having  indeed  the  power  of  fore- 
seeing and  foretelling  the  future.  According  to  Manilius,6 
it  was  to  kings,  whose  lofty  thoughts  reached  the  heights 
of  the  sky,  that  nature  first  revealed  her  mysteries.  The 
pagan  theologians  affirmed,  indeed,  that  the  souls  of  kings 
came  from  a  higher  place  than  those  of  other  men,  and 
that  these  august  personages  borrowed  more  from  heaven 
than  the  common  crowd  of  mortals.7  And  thus,  death  had 
no  sooner  carried  them  off  from  the  earth  than  their  souls 
once  again  rose  to  the  stars,  who  welcomed  them  as  their 

6  Manilius,  I,  41 ;  cf.  Boll,  Aus  der  Offenbarung  Iohannis,  1914,  p.  136  ss. 

7  Pseudo-Ecphant.  ap  Stob.,  Anth.,  IV,  7,  64  (IV,  p.  272  ss.,  Wachsmuth)  ; 
Hermes  Trism.  ap.  Stob.,  Eel.,  I,  49,  45  (I,  p.  407,  W). 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  113 

equals  (sideribus  recepti).  It  was  thought  that  an  eagle 
or  the  chariot  of  the  sun  bore  them  away.8  It  may  seem 
strange  that  the  senate  should  deliberate  as  to  whether  or 
not  a  deceased  emperor  deserved  apotheosis,  and  should 
refuse  or  accord  him  official  canonisation.  But  this  act  is 
in  conformity  with  all  the  ideas  we  have  described,  since 
the  monarch's  benefits  and  victories  were  the  proof  of  his 
divine  origin,  and  since,  if  he  had  committed  crimes  and 
caused  misfortunes,  he  was  thus  shown  to  be  in  no  respect 
a  god. 

In  the  remote  ages  of  ancient  Egypt,  the  Pharaohs 
were  the  first  whom  Osiris  consented  to  identify  with  him- 
self, or  whom  their  father  Ra  bore  away  in  the  solar  boat, 
but  little  by  little  the  rites  practised  in  order  to  ensure 
eternity  to  the  sovereign  were  extended  to  the  mag- 
nates surrounding  him.  Thus  immortality  was  a  kind  of 
posthumous  nobility  bestowed  on  the  great  servants  of 
the  state,  or  usurped  by  them,  long  before  the  rest  of  the 
people  obtained  it.  In  Greece,  also,  kings  were  the  first 
to  be  the  objects  of  a  cult  as  protecting  heroes,  but  after 
them  other  classes  of  eminent  men  received  the  same  title 
and  the  same  adoration,  in  particular  the  founder  of  a 
city,  its  lawmaker  who  had  given  it  a  constitution  and  the 
warrior  who  had  victoriously  defended  it.  In  the  same 
way  as  fabulous  demigods,  Castor  and  Pollux  or  Hercules, 
had  in  heaven  become  brilliant  stars  as  a  reward  for  their 
earthly  deeds,  they  also  were  public  benefactors  who  by 
their  works  and  their  virtues  had  shown  themselves 
worthy  of  the  same  "catasterism."  These  ideas  passed 
to  Rome  with  the  Stoic  philosophy.  After  having  given 
a  list  of  those  who  had  triumphed  in  the  wars  of  the 
Republic,  Cicero  lays  down  as  a  fact  that  not  one  of  them 
could  have  attained  so  far  without  the  help  of  God  ;9  and 
elsewhere  he  states  more  explicitly:10  "To  all  who  have 
saved,  succoured  or  aggrandized  their  country,  a  fixed 

s  See  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  156  ss. 

9  Cic,  Nat.  deorum,  II,  66,  §  165. 

io  Somn.  Scipionis,  3 ;  cf.  Pro  Sestio,  68,  $  143. 


114  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

place  in  which  they  shall  enjoy  everlasting  bliss  is 
assigned  in  heaven,  for  it  is  from  heaven  that  they  who 
guide  and  guard  cities  have  descended,  thither  to  reas- 
cend."  The  ex-consul  Cicero  claimed  apotheosis  for  the 
great  men  of  the  state :  this  was  the  republican  transfor- 
mation of  the  doctrine  of  the  divinity  of  kings. 

Pagan  theology  was  to  give  much  wider  extension  to 
this  doctrine.  In  a  curious  passage  Hermes  Trismegistus11 
explains  that  there  are  royal,  that  is  to  say  divine,  souls 
of  different  kinds,  for  there  is  a  royalty  of  the  spirit,  a 
royalty  of  art,  a  royalty  of  science,  and  even  a  royalty  of 
bodily  strength.  All  exceptional  men  were  godly,  and  it 
was  not  to  be  admitted  that  the  sacred  energy  which 
animated  them  was  extinguished  with  them. 

Pious  priests,  like  kings,  were  judged,  or  rather  judged 
themselves,  to  be  worthy  of  immortality.  Who  could  more 
justly  deserve  a  share  in  the  felicity  of  the  gods  than 
those  who  on  the  earth  had  lived  in  their  company  and 
known  their  designs  ?  He  who  had  thus  been  in  communi- 
cation with  the  godhead  and  learnt  his  secrets  was  raised 
above  the  condition  of  humanity.  This  sacred  knowledge, 
this  gift  of  prophecy,  this  " gnosis,''  which  was  insepa- 
rable from  piety,  transformed  him  who  had  obtained  it, 
set  him  free  even  in  life  from  the  condemnation  of  fate ; 
and  after  death  he  went  to  the  immortals  whose  confidant 
he  had  been  here  below. 

The  philosophers  and  theologians  who  treated  of  the 
nature  of  the  Divine  Being  shared  the  blessed  lot  of  the 
priests  and  soothsayers  who  interpreted  His  will.  Their 
doctrine  came  to  them  by  inspiration  from  on  high,  or  at 
least  so  they  readily  believed.  Their  intelligence,  which 
was  lit  by  a  divine  ray,  penetrated  the  world's  mysteries 
and  subjected  it  to  their  will.  Philosophies  became  a 
synonym  for  thaumaturge.  Even  in  this  life  the  superior 
mind  of  the  philosophers  allowed  them  to  escape  the 
necessities  by  which  other  men  were  oppressed,  and  this 

11  Hermes  Trismeg.  ap.  Stob.,  Eel,  I,  49,  69  (I,  p.  466,  Wachsmuth). 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  115 

reason  returned  after  death  to  the  source  of  all  intelli- 
gence. 

But  all  knowledge  came  from  God.  It  was  He  who  gave 
light  to  the  wise  man,  absorbed  in  austere  research,  and 
caused  him  to  discover  truth.  It  was  He  too  who  inspired 
the  poet,  who  worked  in  him  when  enthusiasm  carried 
him  away ;  He  likewise  who  gave  to  the  artist  the  faculty 
of  apprehending  and  expressing  beauty,  to  the  musician 
the  power  to  recall  by  his  chords  the  sublime  harmony 
of  the  celestial  spheres.  All  who  gave  themselves  up  to 
works  of  the  intellect  had  a  part  in  the  godhead.  They 
were  purified  by  the  high  pursuit  of  spiritual  joy  and 
freed  thereby  from  the  passions  of  the  body  and  the 
oppression  of  matter.  For  this  reason  the  Muses  are  fre- 
quently represented  on  tombs;  beautiful  sarcophagi  are 
decorated  with  the  figures  of  the  nine  sisters.  Thanks  to 
these  goddesses,  mortals  were  delivered  from  earthly 
misery  and  led  back  towards  the  sacred  light  of  the 
heavens. 

Thus  the  spirits  of  all  men  distinguished  above  their 
fellows  were  one  day  to  find  themselves  gathered  together 
in  the  dwelling-place  of  the  heroes.  This  conception  made 
the  future  life  a  reward  for  eminent  service  rendered  to 
the  state  or  humanity.  Its  origin  certainly  went  very  far 
back:  it  is  found  among  primitive  peoples,  in  reference 
to  the  famous  warriors  of  the  tribes,  and  it  never  ceased 
to  be  accepted  in  ancient  Greece.  But  towards  the  end  of 
the  Roman  Republic  it  was  more  generally  admitted  than 
ever  before.  It  was  in  harmony  with  the  constitution  of  an 
aristocratic  society  in  which  it  seemed  that  even  posthu- 
mous honours  should  be  reserved  for  the  elect.  Some 
modern  thinkers  and  poets  have  shared  the  ancient  feel- 
ing which  inspired  it.  Carducci,  who  disliked  the  critics 
of  Milan,  thought  that  they  might  well  perish  wholly,  but 
that  the  great  spirits  like  Dante,  whom  he  interpreted, — 
and  doubtless  also  this  interpreter  himself, — were  saved.12 

12  Maurice  Muret,  Les  contemporains  Strangers,  Paris,  I,  p.  30. 


116  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

Matthew  Arnold  also  in  an  admirable  sonnet  strongly 
defends  the  faith  in  a  limited  immortality.  Let  me  recall 
to  you  the  last  verses : 

"And  will  not  then  the  immortal  armies  scorn 
The  world's  poor  routed  leavings!  or  will  they 
Who  fail'd  under  the  heat  of  this  life's  day 
Support  the  fervours  of  the  heavenly  morn! 
No !  The  energy  of  life  may  be 
Kept  on  after  the  grave,  but  not  begun, 
And  he  who  flagg'd  not  in  earthly  strife, 
From  strength  to  strength  advancing — only  he, 
His  soul  well-knit  and  all  his  battles  won, 
Mounts,  and  that  hardly,  to  eternal  life. ' ' 
***** 

But  this  proud  doctrine  vowed  to  final  destruction  the 
mass  of  humble  men,  the  multitude  of  the  miserable,  that 
is  to  say,  those  who,  because  they  endured  most  in  this 
world,  must  most  aspire  to  seek  in  another  the  happiness 
which  was  here  denied  them  and  the  retribution  which 
should  repair  the  injustice  of  their  earthly  lot.  This 
doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  few  made  low  station 
in  life  a  misfortune  which  was  prolonged  beyond  the 
grave.  To  the  immense  company  of  the  wretched,  who 
suffered  without  consolation,  the  religions  of  the  East 
brought  a  "better  hope,"  the  assurance  that  by  certain 
secret  rites  the  mystic,  whatever  his  rank,  whether  sena- 
tor or  slave,  might  obtain  salvation.  The  virtue  of  the 
liturgical  ceremonies  made  him  equal  to  the  immortals 
{aTraOavaTileiv).  This  was  the  secret  of  the  rapid  spread 
of  these  exotic  cults  in  the  Latin  world. 

Every  day  the  stars  disappear  beneath  the  horizon  to 
reappear  in  the  east  on  the  morrow ;  every  month  a  new 
moon  succeeds  the  moon  whose  light  has  waned;  every 
year  the  sun  is  reborn  to  new  strength  after  his  fires  have 
died  away;  every  winter  vegetation  withers  to  bloom 
again  in  the  spring.  The  gods  of  nature — Attis,  Osiris, 
Adonis — also  rose  again  after  they  had  been  slain;  the 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  117 

gods  of  the  stars  resumed  their  glowing  ardour  after 
darkness  had  overwhelmed  them.  Their  essential  quality 
was  to  be  for  ever  "living' '  or  ' ' unconquered ' '  (invicti). 
Their  career  was  a  perpetual  triumph  over  death.  The 
struggle  implied  was,  under  the  influence  of  dualism, 
recognised  to  be  an  unceasing  battle  between  two  powers 
disputing  possession  of  the  world.  Thus  the  mystic  who 
had  become  god,  who  had  part  in  the  divine  energy, 
also  acquired  the  power  to  conquer  death.  Oriental  reli- 
gions looked  upon  earthly  existence  as  a  fight  from  which 
the  just  man  issued  victorious.  Immortality  was  a 
triumph  won  over  the  powers  of  evil,  of  which  the  most 
implacable  was  death.  The  souls  of  the  elect  were  crowned 
like  athletes  and  soldiers;  their  wreath  was  the  "crown 
of  life, ' '  often  represented  on  funeral  monuments.13  The 
Greeks  sometimes,  and  the  Etruscans  frequently,  had 
personified  death  as  a  horrible  monster  who  frightened 
those  whom  he  approached.  But  the  idea  of  making  death 
into  the  adversary  of  mankind,  from  whose  empire  pious 
and  strong  souls  might  escape,  spread  only  with  the 
reception  of  the  Oriental  beliefs. 

This  mythological  conception  of  salvation  was  com- 
bined in  the  mysteries  with  another,  which  was  more 
scientific,  that  of  fatalism,  which  was  the  chief  dogma 
imposed  by  astrology  on  the  Roman  world.  Death  is  for 
man  the  most  inevitable  and  the  hardest  necessity.  Fatum 
often  denotes  the  unalterable  term  of  life ;  and  this  end, 
which  diviners  could  foresee  but  could  not  delay,  ought, 
according  to  the  law  of  our  kind,  to  overtake  the  soul  as 
well  as  the  body.  But  the  Oriental  cults  never  ceased  to 
claim  that  the  celestial  powers  who  escaped  the  rule  of 
Destiny,  which  extends  only  to  the  sublunary  world,  were 
also  able  to  withdraw  thence  their  faithful  followers.  As 
the  emperor  was  not  subject  to  Fate  because  he  was 
god,  so  he  who  had  been  initiated  and  had  acquired  the 
same  quality  was,  as  a  funeral  inscription  expressed  it, 

13  See  my  Etudes  syriennes,  p.  63  ss. 


118  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

"exempt  from  the  lot  of  death."14  Those  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  occult  ceremonies  of  the  sect  and  were  in- 
structed in  its  esoteric  doctrines  were  alone  able  to  pro- 
long their  existence  beyond  the  term  fixed  by  the  stars 
at  their  birth.  By  the  virtue  of  these  rites  pious  souls  were 
withdrawn  from  this  fate-ridden  earth  and  were  led, 
enfranchised  from  their  servitude,  to  a  divine  world.  ^ 

Thus  those  who  had  acceded  to  a  religious  initiation 
obtained  eternal  life,  like  the  great  men  whose  celestial 
origin  had  predestined  them  thereto.  By  what  rites  was 
wrought  this  "deification"  ((wroflcWis),  or  rather  this 
* '  immortalisation ' '  ( airaOavaTMrixo*;)  f 

The  soul,  enclosed  in  the  body,  was  by  its  very  contact 
with  matter  exposed  to  pollution,  "as  pure  and  clear  water 
poured  into  the  bottom  of  a  muddy  well  is  troubled."15 
The  mysteries  never  conceived  the  soul  as  absolutely  im- 
material: it  was  a  subtle  and  light  essence,  but  one 
coarsened  and  weighed  down  by  sin,  which  thus  altered 
its  divine  nature  and  caused  its  decomposition  and  loss.16 
In  order  therefore  that  immortality  might  be  ensured  to 
the  soul,  it  must  be  cleansed  of  its  stains.  The  pagan 
religions  employed  a  whole  set  of  ablutions  and  purifica- 
tions for  restoring  his  first  integrity  to  the  mystic.  He 
could  wash  in  consecrated  water  in  accordance  with  cer- 
tain prescribed  forms.  This  was  in  reality  a  magic  rite : 
the  cleanliness  of  the  body  wrought  by  sympathy  a  veri- 
table disinfection  of  the  inner  spirit,  the  water  clearing 
off  its  taints  or  expelling  the  evil  demons  which  caused 
pollution.  Or  else  the  initiate  sprinkled  himself  with  or 
drank  the  blood  either  of  a  slaughtered  victim  or  of  the 
priests  themselves.  These  rites  arose  from  the  belief  that 
the  fluid  which  flows  in  our  veins  is  a  vivifying  principle, 
able  to  communicate  new  existence.17  The  man  who  had 

i*CIL,  VI,  1779=Bticheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  Ill,  23:  "(Me)  sorte  mortis 
eximens  in  templa  ducis.  ..." 

is  Pseudo-Lysis  ap.  Jamblich.,  Vit.  Pyth.,  17,  §  77. 
i«  See  Introd.,  p.  29 ;  Lecture  VII,  p.  184  s. 
17  Cf.  Lecture  I,  p.  51. 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  119 

received  baptism  by  blood  in  the  taurobolitim  was  reborn 
for  eternity  (in  aetemum  renatus),1*  and  when,  fonl  and 
repulsive,  he  left  the  sacred  ditch,  he  was  adored  as  a 
god  by  those  present.  Elsewhere  purifications  by  air  and 
fire  were  found  united  to  that  by  water,  so  that  the  differ- 
ent elements  all  had  part  in  the  purgation.19  All  these 
cathartic  ceremonies  had  the  effect  of  regenerating  him 
who  submitted  to  them,  delivering  him  from  the  domina- 
tion of  the  body,  making  him  a  pure  spirit,  and  rendering 
him  fit  to  live  an  immaculate  and  incorruptible  life. 

A  similar  belief  in  a  transference  to  the  soul  of  bodily 
effects  partially  explains  why  unctions  were  still  employed 
in  the  liturgy  of  the  mysteries.  By  rubbing  himself  with 
perfumed  oil  the  wrestler  in  the  palaestra  and  the  bather 
after  the  perspiration  of  the  sweating-room  strength- 
ened their  limbs  and  rendered  them  supple.  Ancient 
medical  science  deals  at  great  length  with  the  propitious 
action  of  numerous  ointments,  and  by  their  means  magic 
worked  not  only  sudden  cures  but  also  prodigious  meta- 
morphoses. The  aromatic  unguents,  which  had  marvel- 
lous antiseptic  qualities,  served  to  ensure  the  conserva- 
tion of  an  embalmed  corpse.  Similarly,  in  the  cult  of  the 
mysteries,  unctions  gave  the  soul  an  increase  of  spiritual 
force  and  made  it  capable  of  prolonging  its  existence  for 
ever.  As  rubbing  with  unctuous  substances  was  a  practice 
of  the  thermae,  so  it  was  of  the  temples  after  the  liturgical 
bath.  In  the  anointing  of  kings  and  the  ordination  of 
priests  they  communicated  to  man  a  divine  character  and 
higher  faculties,  and  this  idea  has  been  preserved  down 
to  modern  times.  But,  above  all,  as  ointments  preserved 
mortal  remains  from  putrefaction,  so  the  consecrated  oil 
and  honey  became  a  means  by  which  the  soul  was 
rendered  incorruptible  and  immortality  was  bestowed 
upon  it. 

The  most  efficacious  means  of  communicating  with  the 
godhead  which  the  mysteries  offered  was,  however,  that 

is  CIL,  VI,  510=Dessau,  4152. 
19  Servius,  Aen.,  VI,  741. 


120  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

of  participation  in  the  ritual  banquets.  These  banquets 
are  found  in  various  forms  in  all  these  religious  com- 
munities. We  have  seen  that  among  the  votaries  of 
Dionysos  his  feasts,  in  which  the  consecrated  wine  was 
drunk,  gave  a  foretaste  of  the  joys  reserved  for  the  ini- 
tiate in  the  Elysian  Fields.20  Drunkenness,  which  frees 
from  care,  which  awakens  unsuspected  forces  in  man, 
was  looked  upon  as  divine  possession,  as  the  indwelling 
of  a  god  in  the  heart  of  the  Bacchantes.  Wine  thus  became 
par  excellence  the  drink  of  immortality,  which  flowed  for 
the  sacred  guests  in  the  meals  of  the  secret  conventicles. 
The  heady  liquid  not  only  gave  vigour  of  body  and  wis- 
dom of  mind,  but  also  strength  to  fight  the  evil  spirits 
and  to  triumph  over  death. 

Sometimes  honey,  which  was  according  to  the  ancients 
the  food  of  the  blessed,  was  offered  to  the  neophyte  and 
made  him  the  equal  of  the  Olympians.  Elsewhere  bread 
consecrated  by  appropriate  formulae  was  held  to  pro- 
duce the  same  effects. 

But  still  another  conception  is  discernible  in  the  feasts 
of  the  mysteries  and  mingles  with  the  first :  it  is  thought 
that  the  god  himself  is  eaten  when  some  sacred  animal  is 
consumed.  This  idea  goes  back  to  the  most  primitive 
savagery,  as  is  seen  in  the  rite  of  "omophagy"  in  which 
certain  votaries  of  Bacchus  fiercely  tore  the  raw  flesh  of 
a  bull  with  their  teeth  and  devoured  it.  Undoubtedly  there 
was  originally  a  belief  that  the  strength  of  the  sacrificed 
animal  was  thus  acquired,  like  the  superstition  of  the 
native  African  hunters  who  eat  a  slain  lion's  heart  in 
order  to  gain  his  courage.  Similarly,  if  a  victim  be 
regarded  as  divine,  to  consume  it  is  to  participate  in 
its  divinity.  "Those,"  says  Porphyry,21  "who  wish  to 
receive  into  themselves  the  soul  of  prophetic  animals 
absorb  their  principal  vital  organs,  such  as  the  hearts  of 
crows,  moles  or  hawks,  and  thus  they  become  able  to 
speak  oracles,  like  a  god."  Similarly,  the  Syrians  ate  the 

20  See  Introd.,  p.  35 ;  cf.  Lecture  VIII,  p.  204. 
2i  Porph.,  Be  abstin.,  II,  48. 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  121 

fish  of  Atargatis,  a  forbidden  food  which  was,  however, 
provided  for  the  initiate  after  a  sacrifice ;  and  those  who 
partook  of  these  mystic  repasts  were  not,  like  the  rest  of 
men,  vowed  to  death,  but  were  saved  by  the  goddess.22 

All  means  of  attaining  to  godliness  were  not  so  crude 
as  these.  An  important  part  of  the  mysteries  was  the 
instruction  which  gave  the  sacred  lore,  the  " gnosis.' '  This 
"gnosis"  included  the  whole  of  religious  learning,  that  is 
to  say,  it  was  the  knowledge  of  rites  as  well  as  of  theologi- 
cal and  moral  truths.  It  taught  above  all  the  origin  and 
the  end  of  man,  but  it  covered  all  the  works  of  God,  and, 
inasmuch  as  it  explained  creation,  it  formed  a  system 
of  the  world  and  a  theory  of  nature.  In  fact  the  world, 
being  wholly  penetrated  by  a  divine  energy,  was  itself  a 
part  of  God.  The  close  alliance  which  exists  between 
philosophy  and  the  mysteries,  and  which  is  revealed  to 
us  especially  in  the  Pythagorean  and  Hermetic  litera- 
ture,23 is  shown  in  the  value  thus  given  to  science.  This 
science,  which  in  the  East  had  always  been  sacerdotal, 
was  not  looked  upon  as  a  conquest  of  reason  but  as  the 
revelation  of  a  god.  Illumined  by  this  god,  the  initiate 
entered  into  communication  with  him,  and  consequently 
himself  became  divine  and  was  withdrawn  from  the  power 
of  Fate.  "They  who  possess  the  knowledge  (yvcocns)  have 
deification  as  their  happy  end,"  said  Hermes  Trisme- 
gistus.24 

The  highest  degree  of  this  "gnosis"  is  the  sight  of  the 
godhead  himself,  or  to  use  the  Greek  word,  "epoptism." 
By  artifice  or  illusion  apparitions  were  evoked  and 
"epiphanies"  produced.25  A  whole  system  of  fastings  and 
macerations  placed  the  mystic  in  a  fit  state  to  attain  to 
ecstasy.  In  the  temple  of  Isis  the  faithful  devotee  merged 

22  Cf.  Comptes  rendus  Acad.  Inscriptions,  1917,  p.  281  ss. 

23  See  above,  Introd.,  p.  37. 

24  Hermes  Trismeg.,  Poimandres,  I,  26 :  Tovto  icm  t6  d-yadbv  tAos  roh 
yvuxriv  iaxVKOcri.  decodijmt.. 

25  See  below,  Lecture  VIII,  207. 


122  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

himself  "with  inexpressible  delight"26  in  the  silent  adora- 
tion of  the  sacred  images,  and  when  the  rites  had  been 
accomplished  and  he  felt  himself  transported  beyond  the 
confines  of  the  world,  he  contemplated  the  gods  of  heaven 
and  hell  face  to  face.  He  who  had  had  the  vision  of  this 
ineffable  beanty  was  himself  transfigured  for  ever.  His 
sonl,  filled  with  the  divine  splendour,  must  when  its 
earthly  captivity  had  ended  live  eternally  in  contempla- 
tion of  the  radiant  beings  who  had  admitted  it  to  their 
company.27 


The  mysteries  have  thus  a  number  of  processes,  some 
material  and  some  spiritual,  for  producing  the  union  with 
god  which  is  the  source  of  immortality.  This  union  is  first 
conceived  as  effected  with  the  particular  god  honoured 
by  a  sect.  As  this  god  has  died  and  has  risen  again,  so  the 
mystic  dies  to  be  reborn,  and  the  liturgy  even  marks  by 
its  ceremonies  the  death  of  the  former  man  and  his  return 
to  a  glorious  life. 

The  fervent  disciple  to  whom  the  god  has  united  him- 
self suffers  a  metamorphosis  and  takes  on  divine  quali- 
ties. In  magic  this  process  is  sometimes  very  grossly  indi- 
cated: "Come  into  me,  Hermes,' '  says  a  papyrus,28  "as 
children  do  into  women's  wombs, ...  I  know  thee,  Hermes, 
and  thou  knowest  me ;  I  am  thou  and  thou  art  I."  The  old 
Egyptian  doctrine  of  the  identification  with  Osiris,  which 
goes  back  to  the  age  of  the  Pharaohs,  was  never  given  up 
in  the  Alexandrian  mysteries,  and  the  whole  doctrine  of 
immortality  rested  on  it.  As  on  the  earth  the  initiate  who 
piously  observed  sacred  precepts  received  in  his  bosom 
the  godhead,  so  after  death  the  faithful  became  a  Serapis 
if  a  man,  an  Isis  if  a  woman.  This  beatification  seems  to 
have  been  conceived  sometimes  as  an  absorption  into  the 

26Apuleius,  Metam.,  XI,  24:  ' '  Inexplieabili  voluptate  divini  simulaeri 
perf  ruebar. ' ' 

2?  See  Oriental  religions,  p.  100,  and  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  210  ss. 

28  Papyr.  of  London,  CXXII,  1  ss. ;  cf.  Eeitzenstein,  Poimandres,  p.  20. 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  123 

heart  of  the  divinity,  sometimes  as  a  multiplication  of  the 
divinity,  who  left  to  the  deceased  his  own  personality. 

It  was  above  all  from  Egypt  that  apotheosis  in  the 
form  of  a  particular  divinity  spread  first  in  the  Hellenis- 
tic and  then  in  the  Roman  world.  As  the  Pharaohs  became 
Osiris  on  the  earth  and  after  their  death,  so  among  the 
Ptolemies  such  names  as  Isis-Arsinoe  and  others  similar 
are  found,  and  the  emperors  were  adored  even  in  their 
lifetime  as  epiphanies  of  Apollo,  Zeus  or  Helios.29  Their 
subjects  could  obtain  a  lot  as  happy  as  that  of  the  sover- 
eigns. The  mystics  of  Dionysos  were  early  made  divine, 
in  imitation  of  those  of  Serapis,  and  became  as  many 
emanations  of  Bacchus;  and  finally  under  the  empire  a 
cult  was  rendered  to  the  dead  under  such  titles  as  Mars, 
Hercules,  Venus,  Diana  and  other  Olympians. 

Conceptions  less  in  conflict  with  reason  were  taught  by 
the  astral  cults  of  the  Semitic  East.  The  celestial  powers 
here  were  higher,  more  distant,  less  anthropomorphic, 
and  it  was  not  imagined  that  a  man  could  assume  their 
form.  Here  the  action  of  the  god  on  the  mystic  recalled 
that  of  the  stars  in  nature :  it  was  regarded  as  an  efflu- 
ence, fallen  from  the  ether,  which  penetrated  the  initiate, 
as  an  energy  which  filled  him,  as  a  luminous  ray  which 
lit  his  mind.  Virtue  from  on  high  entered  into  the  neo- 
phyte and  transformed  him  into  a  being  like  the  divini- 
ties of  heaven.30  He  was  glorified  (Sofacrtfet?)  as  a  con- 
queror who  had  triumphed  over  demons  and  smitten 
down  death;  he  was  illuminated  (cframcrOeLs)  and  pene- 
trated by  a  supernatural  light  which  disclosed  to  him  all 
truth;  he  was  sanctified  {ayiacrOeU)  and  acquired  unfail- 
ing virtue ;  he  was  exalted  ( mpovrai ) ,  that  is  to  say  his 
soul  rose  in  rapture  to  the  stars.  Glory,  splendour,  light, 
purity,  knowledge :  all  these  ideas  were  confounded  until 
they  became  almost  synonymous  and  together  denoted 

29  Eiewald,  Be  imperatorum  Romanorum  cum  certis  dis  aequatione,  Halle, 
1912. 

30  Cf.  Gillis  Wetter,  Die  "Verherrlichwig,"  in  Beitrdge  zur  Belig.- 
Wissenschaft,  II,  1914. 


124  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

the  transfiguration  which  was  undergone  by  the  soul 
called  to  rise  to  ethereal  regions,  even  on  this  earth  and 
while  it  was  still  joined  to  the  body. 

But  this  divine  action,  which  tended  to  become  purely 
spiritual,  was  originally  much  more  material.  A  very 
coarse  substratum  to  the  theological  ideas  is  still  appar- 
ent in  the  texts  which  mention  them.  Magic,  which  was 
addressed  to  the  credulity  of  simple  men,  did  not  conceal 
it  at  all.  Here  the  ascension  of  the  spirit  appeared  as  a 
journey  to  heaven.  By  appropriate  formulae  and  pro- 
cesses the  sorcerers  pretended  to  secure  immortality  for 
their  adepts,  making  them  fly,  body  and  soul,  through  the 
higher  spheres  to  reach  the  dwelling  of  the  gods.31 


In  short,  the  initiate  of  the  mysteries  believed  that  they 
found  in  them  a  warrant  of  immortality.  By  the  virtue  of 
the  rites  their  souls  were  united  to  their  god;  thus  they 
became  themselves  divine,  and  were  ensured  an  everlast- 
ing life.  Inevitably,  every  Oriental  religion  affirmed  that 
it  held  the  only  sacred  tradition  leading  surely  to  eternal 
felicity.  Outside  the  sect  there  was  no  certain  salvation. 
But  philosophy  always  opposed  these  claims.  Philosophy, 
too,  thought  itself  able  to  lead  through  wisdom  to  happi- 
ness in  this  world  and  in  the  next,  and  there  was  rivalry 
between  it  and  the  positive  cults,  as  soon  as  it  took  on  a 
religious  character  and  set  up  religious  claims.  The  Neo- 
Pythagoreans  who  formed  esoteric  communities  opposed 
their  purifications  and  initiations  to  those  of  the  mys- 
teries. But  the  eschatological  doctrine,  of  which  Posi- 
donius  was,  if  not  the  author,  at  least  the  powerful 
promoter,  and  which  was  to  be  taken  up  again  and 
transformed  by  the  Neo-Platonists,  exempted  the  wise 
man  from  any  obligation  to  religious  observances  as 
ensuring  his  immortality.  He  was  no  longer  in  need  of 
sacraments  and  sacrifices,  but  could  by  his  own  unaided 

3i  See  below,  Lecture  VI,  p.  158. 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  125 

force  become  a  pure  intelligence,  win  the  complete  mas- 
tery of  himself  by  reason,  and  thereafter  be  certain  of 
raising  himself  to  the  godhead. 

At  the  most,  certain  thinkers  granted  a  "propaedeutic" 
or  preparatory  value  to  ritual  observances,  and  saw  in 
them  a  means  of  predisposing  the  soul  to  ecstasy,  but  the 
mystic  philosophers,  of  whom  Plotinus  represents  the 
purest  type,  discarded  for  themselves  all  religious  prac- 
tices. Their  proud  doctrine  places  man  alone  face  to  face 
with  God.32  Or  else,  like  Porphyry,  they  admit  that  sacred 
ceremonies  can  purify  the  spiritual  or  pneumatic  soul 
but  not  its  highest  part,  the  intellectual  soul;  that  they 
can  raise  it  to  the  region  of  the  stars  but  not  bring  it  back 
to  the  Supreme  Being.  The  late  pagan  philosophy  asserts 
constantly  and  forcibly  that  the  wise  man's  reason  is  able 
by  itself,  or  rather  through  a  celestial  grace,  without  the 
intervention  of  any  liturgy,  to  ensure  its  own  return  to 
its  divine  source.  "As,"  says  Porphyry,  "he  who  is  the 
priest  of  a  particular  god  knows  how  to  consecrate  his 
statues,  celebrate  orgies,  perform  initiations  and  lustra- 
tions, so  the  true  philosopher,  who  is  the  priest  of  the 
universal  God,  knows  how  to  make  His  sacred  images  and 
to  carry  out  His  purifications  and  all  the  processes  which 
will  unite  him  to  this  God. ' ,33 

Philosophers  were  therefore  the  priests  of  the  world. 
Their  functions  were  parallel  to  those  of  the  actual  priests 
but  higher.  They  tended  more  and  more  to  form  a  sacer- 
dotal order  which  was  separated  from  the  rest  of  human 
society  by  its  customs  and  its  way  of  life.  Like  the  mys- 
teries they  taught  that  piety,  temperance  and  continence 
were  the  indispensable  conditions  of  obtaining  true 
knowledge.  This  "gnosis"  was  no  longer  a  traditional 
theology  revealed  in  the  shadow  of  the  sanctuary,  but  a 
scientific  truth  perceived  by  a  grace-illumined  reason. 
The  philosopher  took  no  part  in  the  ceremonies  of  a 

32  See  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  212. 

33  Porph.,  De  Abstin.,  II,  49. 


126  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

complicated  ritual,  but  his  prayer  was  the  silent  supplica- 
tion of  his  intelligence  seeking  to  understand  creation.  He 
did  not  become  absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  idols 
but  in  the  sight  of  the  divine  world  and  in  particular  of 
the  starry  heavens.  The  end  which  this  lonely  cult  strove 
to  attain  was  analogous  to  that  sought  by  others  in  the 
conventicles  of  the  initiate — a  divine  revelation  which 
would  give  to  the  perfect  wise  man  superhuman  power, 
which  would  make  him  a  prophet,  sometimes  a  wonder- 
worker ;  and  after  death,  already  a  god  on  earth,  he  went 
to  live  in  the  company  of  the  gods  on  high. 

The  lifting  of  the  reason  to  heaven,  source  of  all  intelli- 
gence, was  thus  the  pledge  of  astral  immortality,  as  the 
liturgical  banquet  was  of  the  celestial  feast.  As  physical 
drunkenness,  being  divine  possession,  was  a  prelude  to 
the  joy  of  the  eternal  repast,  so  spiritual  ecstasy  was  the 
sign  of  future  deification.34 

The  ancients  found  impassioned  words  to  depict  this 
communion  of  man  with  the  starry  heavens,  and  to  ex- 
press the  divine  love  which  transported  the  soul  into 
radiant  space.35  In  the  splendour  of  night  the  spirit  was 
intoxicated  with  the  glow  shed  on  it  by  the  fires  above. 
Like  the  possessed  and  the  Corybantes  in  the  delirium 
of  their  orgies,  it  abandoned  itself  to  ecstasy,  which  set 
it  free  from  its  fleshly  wrappings  and  lifted  it  up  to  the 
region  of  the  everlasting  stars.  Borne  on  the  wings  of 
enthusiasm  it  sprang  to  the  midst  of  this  sacred  cho- 
rus and  followed  its  harmonious  movements.  Reason, 
illumined  by  the  divine  fires  which  surrounded  it,  under- 
stood the  laws  of  nature  and  the  secrets  of  destiny.  It 
then  partook  of  the  life  of  the  light-flashing  beings  which 
from  the  earth  it  saw  glittering  in  the  radiance  of  the 
ether ;  before  the  fated  term  of  death  it  had  part  in  their 
wisdom  and  received  their  revelations  in  a  stream  of 

34  See  below,  Lecture  VIII,  pp.  201,  207,  211. 

35  See  my  Mysticisme  astral  dans  I'antiquite  in  Bulletins  de  I 'Acad,  de 
Belgique,  1909,  p.  264  ss. 


THE  WINNING  OF  IMMORTALITY  127 

light  which  dazzled  even  the  eye  of  reason.  This  sublime 
rapture  was  an  ephemeral  foretaste  of  the  endless  felic- 
ity reserved  for  the  sage  when,  after  his  death,  rising  to 
the  celestial  spheres,  he  penetrated  all  their  mysteries.36 

36  See  Lecture  VIII,  p.  210  ss. 


V 
UNTIMELY  DEATH 

IN  the  last  lecture  we  endeavoured  to  show  that  in  the 
ancient  world  immortality  was  at  first  conceived  as 
being  precarious  and  conditional,  and  that  only  the 
heroes,  the  exceptional  men,  who  were  in  truth  gods  on 
earth,  obtained  apotheosis  after  their  death.  We  after- 
wards saw  that  the  mysteries  extended  the  promise  of 
eternal  salvation  to  all  the  initiate,  who  by  virtue  of  the 
rites  were  made  equal  to  the  gods,  and  finally  that  the 
philosophers  contested  the  necessity  of  sacred  ceremonies 
and  affirmed  that  human  reason  by  its  own  unaided  power 
could  win  union  with  God. 

We  will  now  consider  in  more  detail  what  lot  was 
reserved  for  a  special  class  of  the  dead,  those  whose  life 
had  been  interrupted  by  an  untimely  end,  and  how  in 
their  case  philosophy  modified  the  old  traditional  beliefs. 

If  we  turn  over  collections  of  ancient  inscriptions  we 
find,  as  when  we  go  through  our  own  cemeteries,  a  num- 
ber of  epitaphs  in  which  the  grief  caused  by  the  early 
death  of  a  friend  or  relative  is  expressed.  But  in  antiquity 
this  sorrow  was  called  forth  not  alone  by  regret  for  a 
loved  being,  too  soon  lost  to  sight,  and  by  painful  disap- 
pointment because  of  the  irreparable  ruin  of  the  hopes 
to  which  his  youth  had  given  rise.  Along  with  these  human 
feelings,  which  are  of  all  time  and  all  societies,  there  were 
mingled  in  antiquity  ideas  which  caused  the  loss  of  those 
who  died  before  their  time  to  seem  more  fearful  and 
bitter. 

Virgil's  celebrated  lines,  in  which  he  describes  the 
descent  of  Aeneas  to  Hades,  will  be  remembered  -,1 

i  Virg.,  Aen.,  VI,  426  ss. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  129 

1 1  Continue*  auditae  voces,  vagitus  et  ingens, 
Infantnmque  animae  flentes  in  limine  primo, 
Quos  dulcis  vitae  exsortes  et  ab  ubere  raptos 
Abstulit  atra  dies  et  f unere  mersit  acerbo. ' ' 

"Ever  were  heard,  on  the  outermost  threshold,  voices,  a 
great  wailing,  the  weeping  souls  of  infants  bereft  of 
sweet  life  and  torn  from  the  breast,  whom  the  ill-omened 
day  swept  off  and  whelmed  in  bitter  death. ' ' 

In  an  eschatological  myth  of  Plutarch,2  the  traveller 
beyond  the  grave  also  sees  a  deep  abyss,  in  which  moan 
the  plaintive  voices  of  a  multitude  of  children  who  had 
died  at  the  moment  of  their  birth  and  were  unable  to 
rise  to  heaven.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  Latin  poet 
and  the  Greek  philosopher  are  here  interpreters  of  an  old 
Pythagorean  belief,  to  which  Plato  alludes:3  children 
who  died  young,  like  persons  who  met  with  violent  deaths, 
the  dcopoi  Kal  fiiaLoOdvaTOL,  found  no  rest  in  the  other  life, 
but  their  souls  wandered  on  the  earth  for  the  number  of 
years  for  which  their  life  would  normally  have  lasted. 
The  souls  of  the  shipwrecked  who  perished  at  sea  roamed 
the  surface  of  the  waters  and  sailors  believed  that  they 
were  incarnated  in  the  seagulls.4 

How  did  this  belief  in  the  miserable  lot  of  innocent 
children  arise?  Its  origin  should  probably  be  sought  in 
that  fear  of  death  which  haunts  all  primitive  peoples,  and 
it  developed  owing  to  the  frequency  in  antiquity  of  infan- 
ticide by  abandoning  or  " exposing' '  newly  born  infants. 
Remorse  provoked  terror.  This  conclusion  is  especially 
suggested  because  the  fate  of  those  who  died  prematurely 
was  approximated  to  the  lot  of  those  who  died  violent 
deaths.  Beings  who  had  been  prevented  from  completing 
the  natural  span  of  life  were  feared;  their  shades  were 
conceived  as  being  unquiet  and  in  pain,  because  it  was 
believed  that  they  could  return  to  disquiet  and  pain  the 

2  Plut.,  Be  genio  Socratis,  22,  p.  590  F. 

3  Plato,  Bepubl,  p.  615  C;  cf.  Norden,  Aeneis  Buck  VI,  1903,  pp.  11,  27. 

4  Achill.  Tat.,  V,  16. 


130  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

living.  The  idea  was  entertained  that  a  spirit  brutally 
separated  from  the  body  came  to  hold  it  in  horror  and  did 
not  consent  to  inhabit  the  tomb  until  a  reconciliation  had 
been  disobtained  by  expiatory  ceremonies.  Being  griev- 
ously disincarnated,  the  soul  became  harmful.  Souls,  said 
the  ancients,  whom  a  cruel  and  untimely  end  has  violently 
or  unjustly  torn  from  their  bodies,  themselves  tend  to  be 
violent  and  unjust  in  order  that  they  may  avenge  the 
wrong  they  have  suffered.5  It  is  no  rare  thing  to  find  evi- 
dence in  the  inscriptions  of  a  suspicion  that  a  person  cut 
off  in  the  flower  of  his  years  has  been  the  victim  of  some 
foul  play ;  the  curse  of  Heaven  is  called  down  on  the  head 
of  his  assumed  murderer.  The  Sun,  who  discovers  hidden 
crimes,  is  often  invoked  in  Roman  epitaphs  against  this 
unknown  offender:6  " Towards  the  Most  High  god,  who 
watches  over  everything,  and  Helios  and  Nemesis, 
Arsinoe,  dead  before  her  time,  lifts  up  her  hands ;  if  any- 
one prepared  poison  for  her  or  rejoices  in  her  end,  pursue 
him,"  says  an  inscription  of  Alexandria.  But  the  victim 
was  himself  believed  to  be  capable  of  vengeance.  It 
seemed  incredible  that  one  still  full  of  strength  and  life 
should  be  entirely  blotted  out  and  that  the  energy  which 
had  animated  him  should  also  have  disappeared  sud- 
denly, and  the  reprisals  of  this  mysterious  power  were 
apprehended.  This  spirit  pursued  above  all  the  mur- 
derer and,  more  generally,  those  who  had  given  it  cause 
for  complaint.  It  showed  itself  to  them  in  the  form  of 
terrifying  monsters  which  tormented  them.  "As  soon  as  I 
shall  have  expired,  doomed  to  death  by  you,"  says  the 
child  in  Horace  whom  the  witches  sacrificed,  "I  will 
haunt  your  nights  like  a  Fury,  I  will  tear  your  faces 
with  my  hooked  nails,  as  the  Manes  gods  can,  and  weigh- 
ing on  your  unquiet  hearts  I  will  take  sleep  from  your 
affrighted  eyes."7  Suetonius8  relates  that  after  the  death 

5  Tertull.,  Be  anima,  57. 

6  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  8497  ss. ;  cf.  Becueil  des  inscriptions  du  Pont,  9,  258. 

7  Horace,  Epod.,  5,  92;  cf.  Livy,  III,  58,  11. 
s  Sueton.,  Nero,  34,  4. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  131 

of  Agrippina,  Nero  was,  on  his  own  confession,  often 
troubled  by  the  vision  of  her  spectre  and  attempted  to 
calm  her  spirit  by  a  sacrifice  and  an  evocation  which  he 
caused  his  magicians  to  make.  The  same  historian 
gravely  recounts  that  the  house  in  which  Caligula  was 
murdered  was  every  night  haunted  by  dreadful  appari- 
tions until  the  time  when  it  was  destroyed  by  fire.9  A 
scholiast  defines  the  lemur es  as  "the  wandering  shades 
of  men  who  died  before  their  normal  time  and  are  hence 
redoubtable."10  Even  today  popular  belief  in  many  coun- 
tries attributes  a  maleficent  power  to  the  spirits  of  those 
who  have  died  a  violent  death. 

These  disquieting  superstitions  acquired  new  force 
through  the  teachings  of  astrology,  which  by  incorporat- 
ing them  in  its  system  gave  them  a  doctrinal  foundation. 
Astrology  spread  the  belief,  which  was  and  is  common  to 
all  ancient  and  modern  peoples  of  the  East,  that  each 
soul  has  a  predetermined  number  of  years  to  spend  on 
earth.  The  mathematici  multiplied  calculations  and 
methods  in  order  to  be  able  to  predict  the  instant  of  death 
predetermined  by  the  horoscope.  "This  is  the  great  work 
of  astrology,  held  by  its  adepts  to  be  its  most  difficult  and 
by  its  enemies  to  be  its  most  dangerous  and  blameworthy 
operation."11  But  by  an  internal  contradiction  this 
pseudo-science  admitted  that  the  natural  end  could  be 
hastened  by  the  intervention  of  a  murderous  star  (avai- 
penjs) :  Saturn  and  Mars  can  in  certain  positions  call 
forth  sudden  death  by  accident,  killing,  execution.  A  frag- 
ment attributed  to  Aristotle  asserts  that  a  Syrian  mage 
predicted  to  Socrates  that  he  would  meet  such  a  fate.12 
Sometimes  the  maleficent  planets  tear  a  nursing  child 

9  Sueton.,  Calig.,  59. 

ioPorph.,  Epist.,  II,  2,  209:  "Nocturnas  Lemures:  umbras  vagantes 
hominum  ante  diem  mortuorum  et  ideo  metuendas. " 

11  Bouche-Leclercq,  Astrologie  grecque,  p.  404. 

i2Diog.  Laert.,  II,  5,  §45;  cf.  Lamprid.,  Heliog.,  33,  2:  "Praedictum 
eidem  erat  a  sacerdotibus  Syris  biothanatum  se  futurum." 


132  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

from  its  mother's  breast  before  a  single  revolution  of  the 
sun  has  been  accomplished.  All  astrological  treatises 
devote  chapters  to  these  "unfed"  children  (arpo^oi)  and 
also  to  the  biothanati  whose  life  has  been  interrupted  by 
misfortunes  of  any  kind.  Petosiris  was  even  concerned 
to  discover— Ptolemy  declared  such  preoccupation  to  be 
ridiculous13— what  the  stars  reserved  until  the  end  of 
their  life  for  those  who  had  gone  through  only  a  portion 
of  it.  The  texts  which  have  been  preserved— and  often 
expurgated — by  the  Byzantines  give  no  more  than  a  bare 
indication  of  astral  influences  on  the  lot  of  men.  In  an- 
tiquity other  more  religious  and  more  mystical  works 
doubtless  existed  in  which  the  inauspicious  action  of  the 
murderous  star,  still  affecting  after  death  the  souls  torn 
from  their  mortal  wrappings,  was  shown. 

Pythagorism,  which  was  closely  connected  with  astrol- 
ogy, took  possession  of  these  ideas  and  adapted  them  to 
its  speculations.  According  to  this  philosophy  one  and 
the  same  harmony  presided  over  all  physical  phenomena 
and  was,  like  music,  subject  to  laws  of  number.  These  laws 
therefore  were  at  work  during  pregnancy,  and  a  compli- 
cated arithmetic  was  employed  to  show  by  a  multiplica- 
tion of  days  that  a  child  might  be  born  after  seven  or 
nine  months  with  power  to  live,  but  not  after  eight,  for 
such  was  the  strange  doctrine  of  the  sect.  Thus  gestation 
became  a  melody  in  which  abortion  was  a  false  note. 
Nature  was  said  to  be  like  an  artist  who  sometimes 
breaks  an  instrument  of  which  he  overstretches  the 
chords,  and  sometimes  leaves  them  too  slack  and  can  pro- 
duce no  tune.  Now,  these  harmonic  laws  necessarily  deter- 
mined not  only  the  formation  but  also  the  end  of  man : 
"There  is  a  fixed  relation  of  determined  numbers  which 
unites  souls  to  bodies,' '  says  a  philosopher,  "and  while  it 
subsists,  the  body  continues  to  be  animate,  but  so  soon  as 
it  fails,  the  hidden  energy  which  maintained  this  union  is 
dissolved,  and  this  is  what  we  call  destiny  and  the  fatal 

isPtolem.,  Tetrabibl.,  Ill,  10  (p.  127,  ed.  1553). 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  133 

time  of  life. ' ,14  When  the  term  fixed  by  nature  is  reached, 
the  soul  departs  without  effort  from  the  body  in  which  it 
can  no  longer  exercise  its  office.  But  when  the  soul  is 
violently  ejected  from  the  body  and  the  link  connecting 
them  is  broken  by  an  external  force,  it  is  troubled  and  is 
afflicted  by  an  ill  which  will  cause  it  pain  in  the  Beyond. 
These  ideas  had  sunk  deep  into  the  popular  mind.  The 
distinction  between  an  end  in  conformity  with  nature  and 
one  unexpectedly  provoked  by  extraneous  intervention  is 
often  expressed  in  literature  as  well  as  in  inscriptions. 
Thus  the  epitaph  of  a  young  woman  of  twenty-eight,  who 
was  believed  to  have  been  the  victim  of  witchcraft,  states 
that  "her  spirit  was  torn  from  her  by  violence  rather 
than  returned  to  nature, ' ,15  which  had  lent  it  to  her ;  the 
Manes  or  the  celestial  gods  will  be  the  avengers  of  this 
crime.  Still  more  frequently  an  opposition  is  found  be- 
tween an  early  death  and  Fatum.  The  hour  of  death  is 
determined  at  the  moment  of  birth : 

' '  Nascentes  morimur ;  finisque  ab  origine  pendet. ' ,16 

"At  the  moment  we  are  born,  we  die ;  and  our  end  is  fixed 
from  our  beginning. ' '  He  who  reaches  this  term  fixed  for 
his  life  ends  "on  his  day"  (suo  die) ;  otherwise  he  dies 
"before  his  day"  (ante  diem).17  The  vulgar  belief  was 
that  the  intervention  of  a  human  or  divine  will  could 
oppose  the  fated  course  of  things  and  abridge  the  normal 
duration  of  existence.  Often  the  expression  occurs  of  a 
belief  that  a  demon  or,  what  is  more  remarkable,  an  evil 
god  has  carried  off  innocent  children  or  young  men  whose 
life  has  thus  been  shortened.18  But  pagan  theology  under- 
took the  task  of  re-establishing  the  order  of  nature  thus 

i±Macrob.,  Somn.  Scip.,  I,  13,  1,  probably  after  Numenius  (Bevue  des 
etudes  grecques,  XXXII,  1921,  p.  119  s.). 

is  CIL,  VIII,  2756=Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1604. 

is  Manilius,  IV,  16. 

17  Cf.  Schulze,  Sitzungsb.  ATcad.  Berlin,  1912,  p.  691  ss. 

is  Demon:  Kaibel,  Epigr.  Gr.,  566,  4;  569,  3,  etc.— Evil  god:  Dessau, 
8498;  cf.  9093:  "Cui  (sic)  dii  nefandi  parvulo  contra  votum  genitorum  vita 
privaverunt. ' ' 


134  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

disturbed  by  fortuitous  accidents  and  by  individual  and 
unregulated  interferences.  The  breaking  of  the  laws  of 
the  universe  was  only  apparent:  a  soul  might  by  mis- 
chance or  by  a  malevolent  act  be  suddenly  severed  from 
its  body,  but,  remaining  obedient  to  Fate,  it  had  there- 
after to  linger  on  earth  until  its  appointed  time  was 
accomplished. 

Its  lot  was  supposed  to  be  analogous  to  that  of  the 
unfortunate  who  had  been  deprived  of  burial  (ara^ot, 
insepulti)  of  whom  we  spoke  in  our  first  lecture.19  It 
circled  about  the  corpse,  which  it  could  not  abandon,  or 
fluttered  here  and  there  near  the  place  of  burial  or  on  the 
spot  where  the  body  which  it  had  occupied  had  been 
assailed.  Excluded  from  the  abode  of  the  shades  these 
wandering  souls  flitted  near  the  earth  or  on  the  surface 
of  the  waters,  miserable  and  plaintive.  The  fear  of  never 
being  able  to  penetrate  into  the  kingdom  of  blessed  shades 
seems  to  have  inspired  the  following  prayer,  which  occurs 
in  a  metrical  epitaph  of  Capri  :20 

"You  who  dwell  in  the  country  of  Styx,  beneficent 
demons,  receive  me  too  into  Hades,  me  the  unfortunate 
who  was  not  borne  away  in  accordance  with  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Fates,  but  by  a  hasty  and  violent  death 
provoked  by  unjust  anger. '  ' 

These  brutally  disincarnated  souls  became  like  the 
swift  and  harmful  spirits  with  which  the  air  was  filled : 
like  them  they  belonged  to  the  train  of  Hecate,  the  god- 
dess of  enchantment,  and  like  them  were  subject  to  the 
power  of  magicians.  At  Lesbos,  Gello,  a  young  virgin 
carried  off  before  her  time,  became  a  phantom  which 
killed  children  and  caused  premature  deaths.21  The  leaden 
tablets,  which  were  slipped  into  tombs  in  order  to  injure 
an  enemy,  and  the  magic  papyri  of  Egypt  bear  a  large 
number    of    incantations    in    which    these    mischievous 

is  See  Lecture  I,  p.  66  ss. 
20  Kaibel,  Epigr.  Graeca,  624. 

2i  Kohde,  Psyche,  II*,  p.  411;  cf.  Perdrizet,  Negotium  perambulans,  1922, 
p.  19  ss. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  135 

demons  are  invoked.  In  the  same  way  a  series  of  conjura- 
tions, dating  from  the  third  century  and  found  in  the 
island  of  Cyprus,  appeal  to  the  spirits  of  the  dead  thrown 
in  the  common  ditch,  "who  have  met  their  death  by  vio- 
lence, or  before  their  time,  or  who  have  been  deprived 
of  burial."22  In  general  the  sacrifice  of  newly  born  chil- 
dren, and  the  use  of  their  vital  organs  and  bones,  was, 
and  not  without  reason,  a  most  frequent  charge  against 
sorcerers.  Formulas  preserved  on  papyrus  recommend 
as  powerful  means  to  work  a  charm  "a  baby's  heart,  the 
blood  of  a  dead  maiden,  and  the  carrion  of  a  dog."23 
Witches  were  believed  to  steal  children  in  order  to  use 
the  entrails  in  their  occult  operations,  a  ritualistic  murder 
analogous  to  that  attributed  by  popular  belief,  in  some 
countries,  to  the  Jews.  Cicero,  Horace  in  an  epode, 
Petronius  in  his  romance,24  and  other  authors  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  extent  to  which  this  opinion  was  entertained. 
The  epitaph  of  a  young  slave  of  Livia,  wife  of  Drusus, 
relates  his  misfortune.  Before  he  was  four  years  old  he 
was  cut  off  by  the  cruel  hand,  the  "black  hand"  of  a 
witch,  who  practised  her  noxious  art  everywhere. ' '  Guard 
well  your  children,  ye  parents, ' '  adds  the  epitaph.25 

Likewise  the  murder  of  adults  and  the  use  made  of 
objects  which  had  belonged  to  executed  or  murdered  per- 
sons is  frequently  mentioned.  The  wonder-workers  be- 
lieved that  by  practising  with  the  bodies  of  this  class  of 
the  dead,  or  with  objects  they  had  used,  they  became 
masters  of  their  wandering  souls  and  made  them  serve 
their  designs.  The  nails  of  a  crucified  criminal,  the  blood- 

22  Audollent,  Defixionum  tdbellae,  1904,  p.  40,  nr,  22  ss. ;  see  above,  Lec- 
ture I,  p.  68. 

23  Wessely,  Griech.  Zauberpap.  aus  Paris  in  DenJcschr.  AJcad.  Wien, 
XXXVI,  1888,  p.  85,  1.  2577  ss.,  p.  86,  1.  2645  ss. 

24Cie.,  In  Vatin.,  6,  14;  Horace,  Ep.,  5;  Petronius,  63,  8. 
25  Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  987 : 

1 '  Eripuit  me  saga  manus  crudelis  ubique, 
Cum  manet  in  terris  et  nocet  arte  sua. 
Vos  vestros  natos  concustodite,  parentes. ' ' 
Cf.  Petronius,  I.  c,  and  Lecture  II,  p.  61,  n.  48. 


136  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

soaked  linen  of  a  gladiator,  were  efficacious  amulets.26 
Faith  is  still  kept  nowadays  in  the  rope  which  has  hanged 
a  man.27  The  books  which  circulated  under  the  name  of 
Hostanes  the  Persian,  Nectabis  the  Egyptian  and  other 
illustrious  wizards  dealt  with  evocations  of  dwpot  and 
fiiaioOdvaTOL.28 

Thus  a  logical  series  of  beliefs  was  pushed  to  its  ex- 
treme consequence.  At  the  moment  of  birth  Fate  fixed  for 
each  man  the  length  of  his  career;  if  this  were  inter- 
rupted, the  soul  had  to  complete  it  in  suffering,  near  the 
earth,  and  became  a  demon  which  lent  its  aid  to  diviners 
and  sorcerers.  This  doctrine,  supported  by  astrology  and 
Oriental  magic,  imposed  itself  on  many  minds.  Plato,  who 
had  found  it  among  the  Pythagoreans,  alludes  to  it,  and 
Posidonius  seems  to  have  dealt  with  it  more  at  length  in 
his  treatise  "On  Divination"  (wepl  fiavTiKr}*;),29  although 
we  cannot  tell  in  how  far  he  supported  it.  But  it  encoun- 
tered the  objections  of  other  Greek  philosophers.  The 
reproach  made  to  this  theory  was  that  it  left  out  of 
account  morality  and  merited  retribution,  and  brought 
together,  as  subject  to  the  same  misfortune,  criminals 
condemned  to  capital  punishment  and  children  whose  age 
had  kept  them  from  all  sin.  Feeling  and  reason  at  the 
same  time  protested  against  the  cruel  doctrine  which 
vowed  indifferently  the  innocent  and  the  guilty  to  long 
torture.  When  accident  or  illness  caused  the  death  of  a 
beloved  son,  could  his  parents  make  up  their  mind  to 
believe  that  he  would  suffer  undeserved  chastisement?  A 
distinction  had  to  be  made  between  categories  of  persons, 
and  to  this  task  the  pagan  theologians  applied  themselves. 
Let  us  follow  them  in  their  undertaking. 

***** 

The  acopoi  are  those  who  die  "out  of  season,' '  that  is  to 
say,  in  the  wide  sense  of  the  word,  those  whose  existence 

26  Alex.  Trail.,  I,  15,  pp.  565,  567,  Pusehman. 

27  Cf.  Pliny,  XXVIII,  12,  §  49. 

28  Tertull.,  Be  anima,  57. 

29  Norden,  Aeneis  Buck  VI,  p.  41. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  137 

ends  abnormally,  but  more  particularly  those  who  die 
young,  who  die  prematurely.  They  include  the  dvcow^oi, 
those  who  have  received  no  name,  who  have  not,  that  is, 
reached  the  ninth  or  tenth  day  of  life,  the  arpofyoi,  non 
nutriti,  or  babes  who  are  still  being  fed  at  the  breast 
or,  according  to  the  astrologers,  are  not  yet  a  year 
old,  and  the  dyafxoi,  the  innupti,  who  have  died  before  the 
age  of  marriage  and  have  therefore  left  no  posterity  to 
render  them  funeral  rites. 

None  of  these  children  and  adolescents  deserved,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  sages,  any  chastisement.  The  Pythagoreans 
placed  the  age  of  reason,  at  which  man  is  capable  of 
choosing  between  good  and  evil  and  may  be  made  respon- 
sible for  his  faults,  as  late  as  sixteen,  that  is,  the  age  of 
puberty.  Until  that  age  the  "  naked "  soul,  without  virtue 
as  without  vice,  was  exempt  from  all  merit  and  demerit 
which  would  later  attach  to  it.  We  know  the  unhappy  lot 
to  which,  according  to  these  philosophers,  they  were 
doomed.  But  other  theologians  considered  that  these 
souls,  which  had  not  been  weighted  by  a  long  contact  with 
matter,  should  fly  more  easily  to  celestial  heights.  Un- 
sullied by  earthly  pollution,  their  purity  allowed  them  to 
rise  without  difficulty  to  a  better  life  in  a  happier  abiding- 
place.30 

It  is  hard  to  determine  to  what  degree  these  moral  ideas 
had  penetrated  the  popular  mind.  The  reaction  against 
a  superstitious  belief  often  led  to  pure  negation.  Those 
who  held  that  death  put  an  end  to  all  sensibility,  were 
content  to  affirm  that  the  child  they  wept  had  gone  down 
into  everlasting  night,  and  that  nothing  was  left  of  him 
but  dust  and  ashes.  Certain  epitaphs  hope  that,  if  his 
Manes  still  have  some  feeling,  his  bones  may  rest  quietly 
in  the  tomb.  But  mother's  love  was  not  to  be  satisfied 
with  this  negative  assurance  or  to  resign  itself  to  anxious 
doubting.  The  people  kept  an  unreasoning  fear  of  the 
evils  which  awaited  the  dcopot  and  of  those  which  might  be 

30  Sen.,  Dial.,  VI,  23,  1;  Plut.,  Cons,  ad  uxorem,  11 ;  cf.  Dessau,  8481  ss. 


138  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

expected  from  them.  Some  also  believed  that  an  ancestral 
fault — such  as  was,  according  to  the  Orphic  doctrine,  the 
murder  of  Zagreus,  by  the  Titans — made  all  humanity 
guilty  from  birth,  and  that  this  hereditary  sin  had  to  be 
effaced  by  purifications.31  Religion  offered  a  remedy  for 
the  ill  to  which,  to  speak  with  Lucretius,  it  had  itself  lent 
persuasion.  The  custom  of  initiating  children  to  the  mys- 
teries which  was,  at  least  at  Eleusis,  originally  connected 
with  the  family  or  gentile  cult,  became  a  means  of  pre- 
serving them  from  the  fatal  lot  which  threatened  them 
and  of  ensuring  their  happiness  in  the  other  life.  Thus 
pueri  and  puellae  are  found  admitted  at  the  most  tender 
age  among  the  adepts  of  the  secret  cults,  both  Greek  and 
Oriental,  perhaps  even  consecrated  from  birth  to  the  god- 
head. They  are  imagined  as  partaking  in  the  Beyond  of 
the  joys  which  these  cults  promised  to  those  whose  salva- 
tion they  ensured.  A  child  who  has  taken  part  in  a  cere- 
mony of  Bacchus  lives  endowed  with  eternal  youth  in  the 
Elysian  Fields  in  the  midst  of  Satyrs.32  Others  continue 
the  games  proper  to  their  years  in  another  life,  or  if  they 
have  reached  the  age  of  first  love  they  still  sport  with 
young  Eros.  Above  all,  however,  the  influence  of  the  astral 
cults,  added  to  that  of  philosophy,  brought  about  an 
admission  that  innocent  creatures  ascended  to  the  starry 
heavens.  An  epitaph  of  Thasos33  speaks  of  a  virgin, 
flower-bearer  (dv0o(f)6po<;)  probably  of  Demeter  and  Kora, 
who  was  carried  off  at  the  age  of  thirteen  by  the  inex- 
orable Fates,  but  who,  "  living  among  the  stars,  by  the 
will  of  the  immortals,  has  taken  her  place  in  the  sacred 
abode  of  the  blessed.' '  At  Amorgos,  a  child  of  eight  was, 
we  are  assured,  led  by  Hermes  to  Olympus,  shone  in  the 
ether,  and  would  henceforth  protect  the  young  wrestlers 
who  emulated  him  in  the  palaestra.  Even  the  precise  spot 
in  which  he  twinkled  was  fixed,  the  horn  of  the  constella- 

3i  See  below,  Lecture  VII,  p.  178. 
szBucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1233. 
33  Kaibel,  Epigr.  Graeca,  324. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  139 

tion  of  the  Goat — an  appropriate  place  for  this  little 
fighter.34  Curiously,  an  epitaph  of  Africa,  which  repeats 
Virgil 's  very  expression  (p.  129),  states,  in  contradiction 
to  the  poet,  that  a  baby, ' '  cut  off  on  the  threshold  of  life, ' ' 
has  not  gone  to  the  Manes  but  to  the  stars  of  heaven,35  and 
a  relief  of  Copenhagen  shows  the  bust  of  a  little  girl 
within  a  large  crescent  surrounded  by  seven  stars,  thus 
indicating  that  she  has  risen  towards  the  moon,  the  abode 
of  blessed  souls.36 

Examples  of  these  premature  apotheoses  might  be 
multiplied.  I  shall  merely  show,  by  a  characteristic  case, 
how  it  was  possible  for  old  popular  beliefs  to  be  com- 
bined with  the  new  astral  doctrine.  The  ancients  attrib- 
uted to  the  rustic  nymphs  the  strange  powers  which  the 
Greek  peasant  today  recognises  in  beings  which  he  still 
designates  as  the  Nereids.37  Sometimes  these  fantastical 
goddesses  possess  themselves  of  the  spirit  of  men  and 
change  them  into  seers  or  maniacs  {vviifyokrjTTToi) ;  some- 
times their  fancy  is  caught  by  handsome  youths  whom 
they  carry  off  and  oblige  to  live  with  them.  But  above  all 
they  love  pretty  children  and  steal  them  from  their 
parents,  not  to  harm  them  but  in  order  that  they  may 
take  part  in  their  own  divine  pastimes.  Doubtless  it  was 
at  first  to  mountain  caverns,  near  limpid  springs,  in  the 
depths  of  tufted  woods,  that  they  bore  him  whom  they 
made  their  little  playfellow.  Such  were  the  archaic  beliefs 
of  the  country  folk.  But  the  mysteries  of  Bacchus  taught 
that  an  innocent  child,  thus  rapt  from  the  earth,  mingled 
in  the  train  of  the  Naiads  in  the  flowery  meadows  of  the 
Elysian  Fields  ;38  and  when  Paradise  was  transferred  to 

34  Haussoullier,  Eevue  de  philologie,  XXIII,  1909,  p.  6;  see  above,  Lec- 
ture III,  p.  105. 

35  Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  569:  "Vitaeque  e  limine  raptus  .  .  .  Non 
tamen  ad  Manes  sed  eaeli  ad  sidera  pergis. "    Cf.  ibid.,  569,  611. 

ss  See  Lecture  III,  p.  99. 

37Kohde,  Psyche,  II*,  p.  374,  n.  2;  Lawson,  Modern  Greek  folklore,  1910 
p.  140  ss. ;  cf.  Dessau,  8748. 

ss  Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1233;  cf.  Statius,  Silv.,  II,  6,  100. 


140  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

the  sky  it  was  in  the  "immortal  dwelling-place  of  the 
ether"  that  the  nymphs,  we  are  told,  placed  a  little  girl 
whose  charm  had  seduced  them.39 

Transported  thus  to  heaven,  these  loved  beings  were 
transformed  by  the  tenderness  of  their  relatives  into  pro- 
tectors of  the  family  in  which  their  memory  survived,  or 
of  the  friends  who  shared  regret  for  them.  Whether  they 
were  called  " heroes' '  in  Greek,  or  as  elsewhere  "gods,"40 
they  were  always  conceived  as  guardian  powers  who 
acknowledged  by  benefits  the  worship  rendered  them. 
Thus  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century  the  familia  of  a 
proconsul  of  Asia,  C.  Julius  Quadratus,  honoured  a  child 
of  eight  years  as  a  hero,  at  the  prayer  of  his  father  and 
mother;41  and  at  Smyrna  the  parents  of  a  dearly  loved 
child  of  four,  raised  to  this  baby  as  their  tutelary  god,  a 
tomb  on  which  an  epitaph  described  in  detail  all  his 
illnesses.42 

These  sentimental  illusions  are  eternal.  Nothing  is 
more  frequently  seen  on  tombstones  in  our  own  Catholic 
cemeteries  than  such  invocations  as  "Dear  angel  in 
heaven,  pray  for  us,"  or  even  a  figure  of  a  winged  baby 
flying  away  among  winged  cherubs.  This  faith  is  perhaps 
touching,  but  its  orthodoxy  is  doubtful.  For  the  doctors  of 
the  Church,  except  Origen,  have,  I  think,  never  adopted 
the  doctrine  of  Philo  the  Jew  that  human  souls  can  be 
transformed  into  angelic  spirits.  But  in  the  oldest  Chris- 
tian epitaphs  the  conviction  is  already  expressed  that, 
since  children  are  without  sin,  they  will  be  transported 
by  angels  to  the  dwelling  of  the  saints  and  there  intercede 
for  their  parents.  "Thou  hast  been  received,  my  daugh- 
ter, among  the  pious  souls,  because  thy  life  was  pure 
from  all  fault,  for  thy  youth  ever  sought  only  innocent 

aoKaibel,  Epigr.  Graeca,  570,  571;  cf.  CIL,  VI,  29195=Dessau,  8482: 
' l  Ulpius  Firmus,  anima  bona  superis  reddita,  raptus  a  Nymphis. ' ' 

40(7/.  Anderson,  Journ,  hell,  stud.,  XIX,  1899,  p.  127,  n*,  142,  and  below, 
note  42. 

4i  Cagnat,  Inscr.  Gr.  ad  res  Bom.  pertin.,  IV,  1377. 

42  Kaibel,  Epigr.  Graeca,  314. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  141 

play,"43  says  a  metrical  epitaph,  once  under  the  portico 
of  St.  Peter's.  And  another  and  older  epitaph  is  as  fol- 
lows, "Eusebius,  a  child  without  sin  because  of  his  age, 
admitted  to  the  abode  of  the  saints,  rests  there  in 
peace. ' m  Still  others  end  with  the  words  ' '  Pray  for  us, ' ' 
"Pete  pro  nobis." 


Thus  little  by  little  in  antiquity  the  conviction  gained 
strength  and  became  predominant  that,  as  Menander  said 
with  another  meaning,  whom  the  gods  love  die  young.45 
As  to  individuals  whose  days  were  cut  short  by  a  violent 
blow,  they  were  not  uniformly  in  the  same  case.  The  theo- 
rists here  distinguished  among  different  categories  of  the 
biothanati.46  The  classification  seems  to  have  originated 
with  the  astrologists  who  claimed  to  enumerate,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  position  of  Mars  and  Saturn,  all  the  kinds 
of  death  reserved  for  victims  of  these  murderous  planets, 
and  to  foretell  whether  these  unfortunates  were  to  be 
drowned,  burnt,  poisoned,  hanged,  beheaded,  crucified, 
impaled,  crushed  to  death,  thrown  to  the  beasts,  or  given 
over  to  yet  more  atrocious  tortures.  But  the  moralists 
here  also  made  a  point  of  separating  the  innocent  from 
the  guilty.  Only  the  guilty  were  to  suffer  after  death  and 
only  their  souls  were  to  become  demons.  For,  side  by  side 
with  those  who  had  deserved  capital  punishment  for  their 
crimes,  or  who  administered  death  to  themselves,  were 
others  cut  off  by  a  fatal  accident,  perhaps  even  killed 
while  performing  a  sacred  duty. 

43Biicheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1439;  cf.  1400: 

"Vos  equidem  nati  caelestia  regna  videtis 
Quos  rapuit  parvos  praecipitata  dies." 
*4  Cabrol  et  Leclercq,  Reliquiae  liturgicae  vetustissimae,  I,  1912,  nr,  2917; 
cf.  2974;  3153. 

45  Menander 's  verse,  ' l  "Ov  ol  deol  <pi\ov<rip  dirodv^Kei  vios, ' '  is  indeed  trans- 
lated into  Latin  in  a  Roman  epitaph  (Dessau,  8481). 

46  In  Greek,  pioddvaros  is  a  popular  form  for  fiiaiodavaTos.  In  Latin 
biaeothanatus  is  found  only  in  Tertull.,  Be  Anima,  57,  biothanatus  every- 
where else. 


142  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

Such  was  the  case  of  soldiers  slain  in  battle.  Logic 
ordered  the  theologians  to  place  them  among  the  bio- 
thanati,  and  so  they  are,  for  instance,  in  Virgil 's  sixth 
book  of  the  Aeneid.47  But  death  on  the  field  of  honour 
could  not  be  a  source  of  infinite  ills  for  them,  and  it  was 
generally  admitted  that,  on  the  contrary,  their  courage 
opened  for  them  the  gates  of  heaven. 

"Virtus  recludens  immeritis  mori 
Caelum, ' ' 

as  Horace  says.48  The  Greek  theory  of  the  divinity  of  the 
heroes  here  comes  to  temper  the  severity  of  an  unreason- 
able and  dangerous  doctrine.  According  to  Josephus,49 
Titus,  when  haranguing  his  soldiers,  promised  immor- 
tality to  such  as  fell  bravely,  and  condemned  the  others 
to  destruction.  "Who  does  not  know,"  he  asked,  "that 
valiant  souls,  delivered  from  the  flesh  by  the  sword  in 
battle,  will  inhabit  the  purest  of  ethereal  elements,  and, 
fixed  in  the  midst  of  the  stars,  will  make  themselves 
manifest  to  their  descendants  as  good  genii  and  benevo- 
lent heroes?  On  the  other  hand,  souls  which  are  extin- 
guished when  their  body  is  sick,  vanish,  even  if  they  are 
free  from  all  stain  and  defilement,  into  subterranean 
darkness  and  are  buried  in  deep  oblivion."  In  the  mili- 
tary monarchies  of  the  Hellenistic  East,  as  in  the  Roman 
Empire,  eternal  life  was  certainly  promised  to  those  who 
had  perished  arms  in  hand,  faithful  to  their  military  duty. 
We  know  that  the  same  belief  was  transmitted  to  Islam : 
a  Mussulman  who  dies  in  battle  "in  the  way  of  Allah" 
is  a  martyr  (sfoahid)  to  whom  the  joys  of  Paradise  are 
assured.  The  Jews,  who  had  been  reluctant  to  admit  such 
ideas  before,  from  the  time  of  the  Maccabees  onwards 
associated  with  warriors  those  who  sacrificed  themselves 
in  order  to  be  faithful  to  their  persecuted  religion,  and  to 
these  especially  they  promised  a  glorious  immortality. 

47  Aen.,  VI,  477  ss. 

48  Horace,  Od.,  Ill,  2,  21;  cf.  Introd.,  p.  13;  Lecture  IV,  p.  113. 

49  Joseph.,  Bell.  Iud,,  VI,  5,  $  47. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  143 

Faith  in  this  celestial  reward  was  later  to  cause  the  Chris- 
tians, who  won  the  martyr's  crown,  to  face  all  sufferings. 


The  treatment  which  the  gods  reserved  for  another 
class  of  biothanati  was  more  uncertain.  In  the  Greek 
cities,  as  in  Rome,  moral  reproof  and  posthumous  penal- 
ties were  anciently  attached  to  suicide.  The  old  pontifical 
law  refused  ritualistic  burial  to  persons  who  had  hanged 
themselves;  and  instead  of  funeral  sacrifices  it  pre- 
scribed for  these  dead  merely  the  hanging  up  of  small 
images  (oscilla)  consecrated  to  their  Manes,50 — probably 
a  magical,  " sympathetic' '  rite,  which  was  intended  to 
purify  their  wandering  souls  by  air,  as  other  souls  were 
purified  by  water  and  fire.  The  horrible  appearance  of 
men  who  died  by  strangulation  had  given  rise  to  the  belief 
that  the  breath  of  life  had  vainly  sought  to  issue  from 
their  tightly  closed  throats.51  A  rich  inhabitant  of  Sarsina 
in  Umbria  granted  land  for  a  graveyard  to  his  fellow  citi- 
zens, but  excluded  from  the  benefit  of  his  gift  those  who 
had  hired  themselves  as  gladiators,  had  died  by  the  rope 
by  their  own  hand,  or  had  followed  an  infamous  calling.52 
This  association  shows  how  loathsome  this  kind  of  death 
was.  Funeral  colleges  founded  under  the  Empire  intro- 
duced into  their  rules  a  clause  stipulating  that  if  anybody 
had  for  any  motive  whatsoever  put  himself  to  death,  he 
should  lose  his  right  to  burial.53  This  provision  seems  to 
have  been  inspired  less  by  the  fear  that  fraud  would  be 
practised  on  this  society  of  mutual  insurance  against 
supreme  abandonment,  than  by  the  conviction  that  fu- 
neral honours  cannot  deflect  the  curse  which  weighs  on 
the  suicide  and  renders  his  company  undesirable  for 
other  dead. 

50  Servius,  Aen.,  XII,  603. 
5i  Pliny,  N.  H.,  II,  63,  $  156. 

52  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  7846:  "Extra  auctorateis  et  quei  sibei  [la]queo 
marm  attulissent  et  quei  quaestum  spurcum  professi  essent. " 

53  lUd.,  7212,  II,  5. 


144  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

But  there  was  against  popular  opinion  and  religion, 
which  attached  an  idea  of  infamy  to  self-murder,  a 
philosophical  reaction  which,  among  the  Stoics,  led  to  an 
entirely  contrary  moral  judgment.  The  powerful  sect  of 
the  Porch  caused  the  doctrine  to  prevail  that  suicide  was 
in  certain  cases  commendable.  It  saw  in  this  end  the 
supreme  guarantee  of  the  wise  man's  freedom,  and 
praised  those  who  by  voluntary  death  had  withdrawn 
from  an  intolerable  life.  Cato  of  Utica,  who  killed  himself 
lest  he  should  survive  liberty,  was  held  to  be  the  wise 
man's  ideal,  and  as  worthy  of  apotheosis  as  Hercules.  He 
himself,  who  is  shown  to  us  by  the  historians  as  reading 
and  rereading  Plato's  Phaedo  before  he  pierced  himself 
with  his  sword,54  certainly  hoped  for  the  immortality  of 
heroic  souls.  Here,  as  on  other  points,  the  Neo-Pythago- 
reans,  and  the  Neo-Platonists  after  them,  brought  the 
minds  of  men  back  to  the  old  religious  beliefs.  Plotinus, 
yielding  to  the  opinion  which  still  prevailed  in  his  time, 
still  authorises  suicide  in  certain  cases,  but  we  know  that 
his  exhortations  dissuaded  his  pupil  Porphyry  from  put- 
ting an  end  to  his  days,  when  he  was  seized  with  a  disgust 
for  life.  This  latter  philosopher  afterwards  resolutely 
opposed  the  Stoic  doctrine.  Although  the  soul,  said  the 
Pythagoreans  and  Platonists,  is  enclosed  in  the  body  as 
in  a  prison,  in  order  to  suffer  chastisement,  it  is  forbidden 
by  God  to  escape  therefrom  by  its  own  act.  If  it  do  so 
escape,  it  incurs  from  the  masters  of  its  fate  infinitely 
harder  penalties.  It  must  await  the  hour  willed  by  these 
masters,  and  then  it  can  rejoice  in  the  deliverance  which 
it  obtains  at  the  term  of  old  age.  If  it  itself  break  the  link 
which  joins  it  to  the  body,  far  from  ridding  itself  of  servi- 
tude, it  remains  chained  to  the  corpse,  for  necessarily  it 
is  subject  to  passion  at  the  moment  of  death  and  thus 
contracts  impure  desires.  The  only  liberation  worthy 
of  the  wise  man  is  that  of  the  soul  which  still  dwells  in  the 
body  but  succeeds  in  freeing  itself  from  all  fleshly  lean- 

54  Plut.,  Cato,  68. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  145 

ings  and  in  thus  rising,  by  the  force  of  reason,  from  earth 
to  heaven.55 

The  prohibition  of  voluntary  death  anticipating  the 
hour  fixed  by  Providence  for  each  man,  was  strengthened 
and  enforced  everywhere  by  the  Christian  Church. 

With  yet  more  cause  did  those  who  had  been  condemned 
to  capital  punishment  seem  to  deserve  posthumous  tor- 
ment and  the  pains  reserved  for  the  impious.  These  ma- 
leficent spirits,  transformed  to  demons,  continued  to  work 
harm  to  the  human  race.  The  odium  which  attached  to 
the  word  biothanati  ended  by  concentrating  itself  on 
these  two  classes — those  who  had  committed  suicide  and 
those  who  had  been  executed.  The  horror  which  both 
inspired  was  marked  by  the  withholding  of  honourable 
burial.  Even  in  pagan  times,  sacred  or  civil  law  in 
many  places  denied  funeral  honours  to  children  who 
died  young,  and  to  suicides — in  order,  says  a  text,56  that 
those  who  had  not  feared  death  might  fear  something 
after  death — and,  above  all,  to  criminals,  whose  corpses 
were  not  deposited  in  a  tomb  but  were  thrown  without 
any  ceremony  into  a  common  ditch  (irokvavhpiov).  In 
Eome  persons  executed  in  prison  were  dragged  with  a 
hook  through  the  streets  to  the  Tiber,  where  they  were 
flung  into  the  water.  There  was  in  the  fact  that  they  were 
deprived  of  funeral  rites  a  second  reason,  besides  their 
guilt,  for  their  suffering  in  the  Beyond.57  Families  and 
friends  of  the  condemned  endeavoured  therefore  to  spare 
them  this  fearful  penalty,  and  could  obtain  from  the 
magistrates  the  surrender  of  their  bodies  to  them.  But 
the  authorities  often  refused  this  supreme  consolation  to 
Christians  who  wished  to  pay  this  last  duty  to  their 
martyred  brothers.  By  scattering  abroad  the  ashes  of 
martyrs  the  pagans  hoped  to  prevent  their  graves  from 
becoming  the  sites  of  cults. 

The  denial  of  a  religious  funeral  was  also  from  the 

55  Cf.  Revue  des  etudes  grecques,  XXXII,  1921,  p.  113ss. 

56  Sen.,  Controv.,  VIII,  4,  end. 

57  See  above,  Lecture  I,  p.  64  ss. 


146  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

earliest  time  onwards  ordered  by  Church  discipline  and 
sanctioned  by  the  Councils  in  the  case  of  suicides,  and 
was  similarly  extended,  in  virtue  of  the  law  in  force,  to 
malefactors.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  corpses  of  criminals 
were  still  to  be  seen  carried  to  a  shameful  charnel-place 
in  Byzantium.  For  instance,  the  chronologist  Theoph- 
anes58  relates  indignantly  that  in  764  the  iconoclastic 
Emperor  Constantine  Copronymus  caused  the  arrest  of 
a  hermit  of  Bithynia,  who  supported  the  cult  of  the 
images.  The  emperor's  guards  tied  a  cord  round  the 
monk's  foot  and  dragged  him  from  the  praetorium  to 
the  cemetery,  where,  after  cutting  him  to  pieces,  they 
flung  his  remains  into  the  ditch  of  the  biothanati.  Curi- 
ously this  word,  biothanati,  was  derisively  applied  to  the 
Christians  themselves,  either  because  they  adored  a 
crucified  Saviour,  or  in  mockery  of  the  martyrs,  who  be- 
lieved that  through  death  by  execution  they  earned  a 
glorious  immortality.  The  poet  Commodianus  returns 
this  insult  by  applying  the  term  to  the  pagans,  whose  way 
of  life  condemned  them  to  everlasting  flames.59  The  oppro- 
brious word  remained  in  use  until  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
it  denoted  all  whose  crimes  deserved  capital  punishment, 
so  that  the  final  meaning  of  biothanatus  was  gallows-bird, 
gallows-food.60 

If  the  meaning  of  the  word  biothanati  was  thus  re- 
stricted in  the  Latin  world,  the  old  ideas  which  it  called 
forth  have  had  a  singular  vitality  in  folk-lore,  especially 
among  the  Greeks.  The  Greeks  believe  even  today  that 
such  as  perish  by  a  sudden  and  violent  death  became 
vrykolakes.61  Their  bodies  can  again  be  reanimated,  can 
leave  the  grave,  and  can  travel  through  space  with 
extreme  rapidity  as  vampires  and  become  so  maleficent 
that  mere  contact  with  them  causes  loss  of  life.  Suicides 
and  victims  of  unavenged  murders  are  particularly  fear- 

58  Theophanes,  Chronicon,  p.  437,  3  ss.,  De  Boor. 

59  Commodianus,  I,  14,  8. 

so  Du  Cange,  Glossarium,  s.  v. 

6i  Lawson,  Modem  Greek  folklore,  1910,  p.  408  ss. 


UNTIMELY  DEATH  147 

fill.  It  was  the  custom  as  late  as  the  eighteenth  century 
to  open  the  grave  of  a  dead  man  suspected  of  being  a 
vryJcolakas,  and  if  his  body  had  escaped  corruption,  thus 
proving  his  supposed  character,  it  was  cut  into  pieces  or 
burnt  in  order  to  prevent  it  from  doing  further  harm.  So 
lively  did  the  belief  remain  that  the  biothanatus  could  not 
detach  himself  from  his  body,  and  that  his  existence, 
which  had  been  too  soon  interrupted,  was  prolonged  in 
the  tomb. 


VI 

THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND 

AS  soon  as  belief  took  shape  in  an  underground  king- 
f\  dom  where  gathered  the  shades  which  were  sepa- 
^Z7jL_rated  from  the  body  and  from  the  grave,  the  idea 
also  arose  of  a  perilous  journey  which  the  soul  must  make 
in  order  to  win  to  this  distant  abode.  Such  an  idea  is 
common  to  many  peoples  of  the  world.  In  California,  the 
Mojave  Indians  are  said  to  believe  that  the  departed  have 
to  find  their  way  through  a  complicated  maze  in  search  of 
the  happy  hunting  grounds,  which  only  the  good  souls 
can  reach,  while  the  wicked  wander  painfully  and  end- 
lessly. We  know  what  minutely  detailed  rules  are  con- 
tained in  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead,  rules  to  which 
the  deceased  had  to  conform  in  order  that  they  might 
travel  safely  to  the  Fields  of  the  Blessed.  The  Orphic 
tablets,  discovered  in  tombs  in  Italy,1  have  preserved 
fragments  of  another  guide  to  the  Beyond.  For  instance, 
the  tablet  of  Petelia,  which  goes  back  to  the  second  or 
perhaps  the  third  century  B.  C,  begins  thus :  "Thou  shalt 
find  to  the  left  of  the  house  of  Hades  a  well-spring,  and 
by  the  side  thereof  standing  a  white  cypress.  To  this 
well-spring  approach  not  near.  But  thou  shalt  find  an- 
other by  the  lake  of  Memory,  cold  water  flowing  forth, 
and  there  are  Guardians  before  it.  Say  'I  am  a  child  of 
Earth  and  of  Starry  Heaven.  But  my  race  is  of  Heaven 
(alone).  This  ye  know  yourselves.  And  so  I  am  parched 
with  thirst  and  I  perish.  Give  me  quickly  the  cold  water 
flowing  from  the  lake  of  Memory. '  And  of  themselves 
they  will  give  thee  to  drink  from  the  holy  well-spring; 

i  See  above,  Lecture  IT,  p.  74. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     149 

and  thereafter  among  the  other  heroes  thou  shalt  have 
lordship.  .  .  . '  '2 

These  instructions,  which  accompanied  the  member  of 
the  sect  to  his  grave, — he  bore  them  about  his  neck  like  an 
amulet, — were  supposed  to  enable  him  to  keep  from 
straying  in  his  posthumous  wanderings  and  help  him  to 
accomplish  exactly  all  the  acts  necessary  for  his  salva- 
tion. They  were  a  sort  of  liturgy  of  the  other  side  of  the 
grave  which  would  ensure  eternal  happiness  to  the  faith- 
ful. "Courage  (  e£t/w'xet ) >  be  valiant  (  Bdppet ) ;  no  man  is 
immortal  on  earth,"  such  is  the  exhortation  frequently 
expressed  in  epitaphs.  It  probably  reproduces  a  ritual- 
istic formula  intended  to  sustain  the  shade  which  had  to 
blaze  its  path  in  the  Beyond. 

The  Etruscans  also  had  libri  Acheruntici,  books  of 
Acheron  which  were  attributed  to  the  sage  Tages  and 
which  treated  of  the  fate  of  the  dead.  These  made  known, 
in  particular,  what  were  the  rites  by  which  souls  could 
be  transformed  into  gods  {di  animates).  Their  very  title 
betrays  a  Greek  teaching,  and  there  are  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  the  teaching  of  the  Pythagoreans  was  not 
without  influence  on  their  composition.3  It  is  hardly 
doubtful  that  they  were  concerned  with  the  path  which 
the  Manes  of  human  beings  must  follow  in  order  to  go 
down  into  the  infernal  regions.  The  Etruscan  stelae  and 
cinerary  urns  often  show  this  journey  to  Hades :  some- 
times the  dead  are  placed,  like  heroes,  in  a  war  chariot ; 
sometimes  in  a  cart  protected  by  a  canopy  and  exactly 
copied  from  the  peasants'  carts ;  and  often  nothing  would 
indicate  that  these  travellers  are  but  shades,  were  not  the 
significance  of  the  scene  defined  by  the  presence  of  some 
deity  of  the  nether  world,  like  Charon.  The  great  sar- 
cophagus of  Vulci  in  the  Boston  Museum  bears  a  fine 
representation  of  this  type,  where  the  character  of  the 

2  Transl.  Harrison,  Prolegomena  to  the  study  of  Greek  religion,  1903, 
p.  660. 

s  Timlin,  Etruslcische  Disciplin,  III,  1909,  p.  58  ss. 


150  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

travellers  is  shown  by  a  winged  Fury  standing  behind 
their  carriage. 

Thus  the  idea  that  the  dead  have  to  tramp  a  long  road 
descending  into  the  depths  of  the  earth  before  they  reach 
their  last  abode,  was  accepted  in  Italy  as  in  Greece  from 
a  very  ancient  period.  How  did  men  imagine  this  road? 
Their  conception  of  it  is  connected  with  a  whole  group  of 
Pythagorean  doctrines  which  go  back  to  a  remote  age. 

The  old  poetry  of  Hesiod  already  speaks  of  two  roads 
of  life,  a  short  and  easy  road  which  is  that  of  vice,  and 
the  path  of  virtue,  which  is  at  first  steep  and  rugged  but 
becomes  less  hard  as  soon  as  the  top  of  the  slope  is 
reached.  Everyone  knows  the  use  which  the  sophist 
Prodicus  makes  of  this  ancient  comparison  in  the  famous 
myth  of  Hercules  at  the  crossroads.4  In  it,  two  women 
appear  to  the  youthful  hero,  and  one  seeks  to  draw  him 
to  the  path  of  deceitful  pleasures  while  the  other  succeeds 
in  conducting  him  to  the  path  of  austere  labours  which 
leads  to  true  happiness.  This  same  conception,  which  is 
transmitted  through  the  whole  of  antiquity,  inspired  the 
Pythagoreans  with  the  symbol  of  the  letter  Y,  formed  of 
a  vertical  spike  topped  by  two  divergent  branches.  The 
spike  is  the  road  common  to  all  men  until  they  have 
reached  the  age  of  reason  and  responsibility.  Subse- 
quently they  must  choose  between  the  right  and  the  left 
branches.  The  former,  say  these  moralists,  is  steep  and 
rough  and  at  first  requires  strenuous  effort,  but  when 
those  who  climb  it  have  gained  its  summit  they  obtain  a 
well-deserved  rest.  The  other  road  is  at  first  level  and 
pleasant,  but  it  leads  to  harsh  rocks  and  ends  in  a  preci- 
pice over  which  the  wretched  man  who  has  followed  it  is 
hurled.  This  symbol  was  popular  in  antiquity  as  well  as 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  a  fact  of  which  a  curious  proof,  addi- 
tional to  those  in  the  texts,  has  lately  been  found.  This  is 
a  relief,  accompanied  by  an  inscription,  dating  from  the 
first  century  of  our  era,  which  has  been  discovered  at 

4  Xenoph.,  Memorab.,  II,  1,  21;  cf.  Hesiod,  Op.  et  dies,  287  ss. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     151 

Philadelphia  in  Lydia.5  It  decorated,  as  the  epitaph 
shows,  the  tomb  of  a  Pythagorean,  and  it  is  divided  into 
compartments  by  mouldings  in  the  form  of  the  letter  Y. 
Below,  to  the  right,  a  child  is  seen,  in  the  care  of  a  woman 
who  is  designated  as  Virtue  ('Aperij) ;  above,  a  plough- 
man, driving  his  plough,  stands  for  the  hard  and  per- 
severing labour  of  the  good  man,  who,  still  higher,  lies 
on  a  couch  before  a  table  like  the  guest  at  a  "funeral 
banquet "  because  he  has  obtained  the  reward  of  his  toil. 
On  the  left  side  there  is  also,  below,  a  woman  with  a  child, 
but  she  stands  for  wantonness  ('Ao-arreia) ;  above  her  a 
figure  is  indolently  lying  on  a  bed ;  and  still  further  above, 
the  same  figure  is  seen  falling  into  a  gulf,  head  down- 
wards, in  chastisement  of  his  vices. 

These  naive  scenes  decorated,  as  we  have  said,  a  burial 
place.  Many  other  tombs  are  not  so  elaborate,  but  express 
the  same  symbolism  by  opposing  the  hard  labour  of  man, 
represented  on  the  lower  part  of  the  stele,  to  the  rest 
which  this  same  man  enjoys  on  the  upper  part  of  the 
stone,  that  is,  in  heaven.6  The  symbol  of  the  Y  was  early 
applied  to  the  future  life  by  the  Pythagoreans,  who  trans- 
ferred the  roads  representing  the  courses  of  the  moral 
and  the  immoral  life  to  Hades.  Their  stories  of  the 
descent  to  the  nether  world  depicted  the  journey  of  the 
dead  in  the  same  way,  and  it  is  still  thus  described  in  the 
sixth  book  of  the  Aeneid.  The  dead  first  follow  a  common 
road;  and  those  whose  lot  is  still  undetermined  wait  in 
this  first  abode,  just  as  on  earth  children  are  not  yet  sepa- 
rate at  the  uncertain  age  at  which  they  have  not  yet  made 
their  decision  for  virtue  or  for  vice.  At  the  crossroads  of 
earthly  existence  the  choice  must  be  made ;  at  the  cross- 
road of  the  infernal  regions  (17)10809)  the  judges  of  souls 
are  seated,7  and  send  to  the  right  those  who  have  by  their 
merits  made  themselves  worthy  to  enter  the  Elysian 
Fields,  while  they  drive  to  the  left  the  wicked  who  are  to 

s  Brinkmann,  Bheinisches  Museum,  LXVI,  1911,  p.  622  ss. 
6  See  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  205. 
?  See  Lecture  II,  p.  76. 


152  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

be  hurled  into  Tartarus.  For  in  both  worlds  "  right' '  is 
to  the  Pythagorean,  as  to  the  soothsayers,  synonymous 
with  "good,"  and  "left"  synonymous  with  "evil." 

The  original  conception  was  necessarily  transformed 
and  explained  symbolically  when  the  abode  of  virtuous 
souls  was  transported  to  heaven.  The  stories  of  the 
ancients  were  no  longer  taken  in  their  literal  sense, 
but  an  allegorical  meaning,  allowing  them  to  be  brought 
into  harmony  with  the  new  beliefs,  was  given  to  them. 
Henceforward  one  of  the  two  roads  leads  to  the  higher 
regions,  the  road,  namely,  of  the  Blessed  (6805  fxaKapcov) 
or  of  the  gods.  The  other,  the  path  of  men,  is  that  which 
after  long  windings  brings  back  to  earth  the  impure  souls 
who  accomplish  the  cycle  of  their  migrations  and  must  be 
reincarnated  in  new  bodies. 

A  passage  of  Cicero's  Tusculans,8  which  is  directly 
inspired  by  the  Phaedo  of  Plato,  is  instructive  as  to  the 
transformation  which  ideas  underwent.  "There  are,"  it 
says,  "two  roads  and  two  courses  for  souls  which  issue 
from  the  body.  The  souls  which  are  sullied  with  human 
vice  and  have  abandoned  themselves  to  passions  .  .  . 
follow  a  crooked  path  which  leads  them  away  from  the 
dwelling  of  the  gods ;  but  for  the  souls  which  have  kept 
their  innocence  and  purity  and  have,  while  in  human 
bodies,  imitated  the  life  of  the  gods,  there  is  an  easy 
return  to  the  beings  from  whose  abode  they  descended  to 
the  earth."  In  the  same  way  Virgil,  as  we  have  said  else- 
where,9 is  apparently  faithful  to  the  traditional  topogra- 
phy of  Hades,  but  does  not  regard  it  as  really  situated  in 
the  underground.  There  were  even  attempts  to  fix  pre- 
cisely the  itinerary  which  souls  had  to  follow  in  the  upper 
spheres.  Seneca  pleasantly  ridicules  these  beliefs  in  his 
satire  on  the  apotheosis  of  Claudius,  affirming  that  em- 
perors went  to  heaven  by  the  Appian  Way.  The  Milky 
Way,    originally    regarded    as    the    path    of    the    sun, 

s  Cic,  Tusc,  I,  30,  72. 

9  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  82. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     153 

remained,  according  to  an  opinion  which  persisted  nntil 
the  end  of  antiquity,  the  road  by  which  gods  and  heroes 
rose  to  the  zenith.10  It  was  said  to  cut  the  zodiac  in  the 
tropical  signs  of  Cancer  and  Capricorn,  and  it  was  there 
that  those  gates  opened  by  which  souls  went  down  from 
heaven  to  earth  and  rose  from  earth  to  heaven.11  The 
former  of  these  gates  was  called  the  Gate  of  Men,  the 
other  the  Gate  of  Gods. 

We  will  return  later  (p.  162)  to  the  theories  which  assign 
different  dwellings  in  the  starry  spheres  to  pure  spirits 
and  tell  of  their  passing  through  the  celestial  gates.  We 
would  merely  note  that  the  allegory  of  the  two  roads,  of 
which  one  is  the  road  of  God  and  heaven  and  eternal  life 
and  the  other  that  of  Satan,  hell  and  death,  is  found  in 
the  most  ancient  Christian  literature,  and  is  justifiably 
likened  by  Lactantius12  to  the  Pythagorean  Y,  which  is  at 
the  origin  of  all  the  later  symbolism. 


But  when  the  idea  of  a  journey  to  the  underworld  had 
been  transformed  into  that  of  a  journey  to  heaven,  how 
was  the  power  of  the  dead  to  reach  the  upper  spheres 
explained?  What  force  or  what  vehicle  raised  them 
thither?  Originally  they  made  use  of  all  the  means  of 
locomotion.  They  went  on  foot,  in  a  ship,  in  a  carriage,  on 
horseback,  and  even  had  recourse  to  aviation. 

Among  the  ancient  Egyptians  the  firmament  was  con- 
ceived as  being  so  close  to  the  mountains  of  the  earth  that 
it  was  possible  to  get  up  to  it  with  the  aid  of  a  ladder. 
The  early  texts  of  the  Pyramids  describe  the  gods  help- 
ing the  king  to  climb  the  last  rungs  of  the  ladder,  when  he 
ascended  to  their  high  dwelling.  Such  ideas  are  found 
elsewhere,  among  the  Chinese  as  well  as  in  Europe.  We 
are  told  that  a  priest-king  of  a  people  of  Thrace  joined 
tall  wooden  ladders  together  in  order  that  he  might  go  to 

10  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  94. 

ii  Cf.  Comptes  rendus  Acad.  Inscr.,  1920,  p.  277. 

12  Lactantius,  Inst.,  VI,  3  s. 


154  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

Hera  to  complain  of  his  unruly  subjects.13  Although  the 
stars  had  been  relegated  to  an  infinite  distance  in  space, 
the  ladder  still  survived  in  Roman  paganism  as  an  amulet 
and  as  a  symbol.  Many  people  continued  to  place  in  tombs 
a  small  bronze  ladder,  which  recalled  the  naive  beliefs  of 
distant  ages.  This  means  of  attaining  to  the  upper  world 
has  been  given  to  the  dead  man  in  several  graves  of  the 
Rhine  border.  In  the  mysteries  of  Mithras  a  ladder  of 
seven  steps,  made  of  seven  different  metals,  still  symbol- 
ised the  passage  of  the  soul  across  the  planetary  spheres.14 
Philo,  and  after  him  Origen,15  interpreted  Jacob  's  ladder 
as  the  air  through  which  the  disincarnate  souls  ascended 
and  descended;  and  the  patriarch's  dream  in  the  symbol- 
ism of  the  Middle  Ages  was  still  considered  as  a  pledge 
of  the  ladder  of  salvation  leading  the  elect  to  heaven.  A 
naive  miniature  of  the  illustrated  manuscripts  of  St.  John 
Climacus — one  of  them  is  preserved  in  the  Freer  collec- 
tion— shows  monks  climbing  the  heavenly  ladder  of  virtues 
and  welcomed  at  the  top  by  Christ  or  by  an  angel,  while 
winged  demons  try  to  pull  them  down  and  make  them  fall 
into  the  jaws  of  a  dragon  below,  which  represents  hell.16 
On  the  other  hand,  even  in  antiquity  the  emblem  of  the 
ladder  had  been  adopted  by  magic,17  which  retained  it 
throughout  the  centuries,  and  to  this  day  little  ladders  are 
sold  in  Naples  as  charms  against  the  jettatura  or  evil  eye. 
In  Egypt  the  souls  also  travelled  to  the  dwelling  of  the 
gods  in  the  boat  of  Ra,  the  solar  deity.  This  idea  does  not 
seem  to  have  passed  into  the  mysteries  of  Isis  in  the  West 
but  in  the  East  it  was  retained  by  the  Manicheans.  The 
moon  and  the  sun  were  the  ships  which  plied  through  the 

13  Polyaen.,  VII,  22. 

14  See  Lecture  III,  p.  107;  Monum.  mysteres  de  Mithra,  I,  p.  118  s. ; 
II,  p.  525. 

is  Philo,  De  somniis,  I,  22;  Origen,  Contra  Celsum,  VI,  21. 

is  Charles  R.  Morey,  East  christian  paintings  in  the  Freer  collection,  New 
York,  1914,  p.  17  ss. 

17  Ladder  among  other  magical  emblems  on  terra  cotta  discs  found  at 
Taranto;  cf.  Bevue  archeologique,  V,  1917,  p.  102. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND      155 

heavenly  spaces  carrying  the  luminous  spirits.18  For  the 
Greeks  it  was  to  the  Islands  of  the  Blest,  situated  some- 
where in  the  distant  ocean,  that  ships  transported  the 
dead.  This  crossing  of  the  sea,  peopled  by  monsters  of 
the  deep,  was  one  of  the  favourite  subjects  of  the  decora- 
tors of  Roman  sarcophagi.  But  under  the  Empire  the 
Fortunate  Islands,  we  know,19  were  often  explained  as 
being  the  moon  and  the  sun,  washed  by  the  ether,  and  it 
was  therefore  to  the  moon  that  the  bark  of  salvation  had 
to  bear  souls  across  the  stormy  waters  of  matter.  The 
Styx  had  become  a  celestial  or  aerial  river ;  Charon,  with 
the  help  of  the  winds,  caused  pious  souls  to  pass  not  to  the 
subterranean  world  but  to  the  heavenly  dwelling  of 
heroes.20  The  bark  which  should  bear  the  Blessed  to  the 
abode  of  delight,  where  they  would  live  together,  is  often 
represented  in  funeral  sculpture,21  and  continued  to  be  in 
Christian  art,  the  symbol  of  a  happy  passage  to  the  shores 
of  Paradise.  Epitaphs  sometimes  cause  the  passer-by  to 
wish  the  dead  ' l  Ev7r\o?, ' '  "  A  happy  voyage ! ' m 

The  Etruscan  tombs  often  show  the  dead  man  on  horse- 
back on  the  road  of  the  underworld,  and  in  early  Greek 
tombs  terra  cotta  shoes  and  horses  have  been  discovered 
which  were  intended  to  make  easier  the  long  and  danger- 
ous journey  to  the  country  whence  there  is  no  return.  But 
in  order  that  a  rider  may  win  to  heaven  his  horse  must  be 
provided  with  strong  wings.  Primitively  these  wings  were 
probably  intended  to  indicate  only  the  swiftness  of  this 
mythical  steed.23  But  in  Roman  times  they  undoubtedly 
meant  that  it  could  fly  up  to  the  sky.  The  great  Paris 

is  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  93. 

19  Ibid.,  p.  96. 

20  Cf.  Bevue  de  philologie,  XLIV,  1920,  p.  75. 

si  Cf.  Joseph  Keil,  Jahresh.  Institute  Wien,  XVII,  1914,  pp.  138,  142,  n. 
13;  Bormann,  Bericht  des  Vereins  Carnuntum,  1908-1911,  p.  330,  where  Itala 
felix  applies  not  to  the  ship  but  to  the  dead  woman. 

22  For  instance,  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  8031. 

23  Cf.  my  JEtudes  syriennes,  1917,  p.  99,  n.  1.  So  on  the  beautiful  chariot 
of  Monteleone  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York  (sixth  century 
B.  C). 


156  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

cameo,  said  to  represent  the  apotheosis  of  Augustus, 
shows  a  prince  of  his  house,  Germanicus  or  perhaps  Mar- 
cellus,  thus  borne  away  by  a  winged  courser.24  There  is  a 
similar  representation  on  a  coin  which  commemorates  the 
apotheosis  of  an  empress,  probably  Faustina.  The  same 
Pegasus,  who  probably  has  nothing  in  common  with 
Bellerophon's  steed,  appears  again  on  a  fragment  of  a 
relief  recently  discovered  in  England  at  Corstopitum 
(Corbridge-on-Tyne).25  He  is  carrying  off  a  personage, 
probably  an  emperor,  who  wears  the  paludamentum  or 
military  cloak  and  has  his  head  bound  with  a  radiate 
crown,  on  either  side  of  whom  are  the  Dioscuri,  the  sym- 
bols of  the  two  celestial  hemispheres.  The  dead  are 
mounted  on  Pegasus  because  he  was  brought  into  relation 
with  the  Sun,  who  is  the  creator  and  saviour  of  souls. 

For  the  same  reason,  because  he  was  the  sacred  animal 
of  Apollo,  the  gryphon  served  this  purpose.  Thus  in  the 
medallion  which  decorates  the  stucco  vault  of  a  tomb  on 
the  Latin  Way  this  winged  monster  carries  on  his  strong 
back  a  veiled  figure,  covered  with  a  long  garment,  who 
can  be  no  other  than  the  shade  of  the  dead  man  wrapped 
in  the  shroud.26 

Throughout  antiquity,  however,  the  departed  travelled 
most  frequently  in  a  chariot,  which  had  in  the  Roman 
period  become  the  chariot  of  the  Sun-god.27  The  idea  that 
the  divine  charioteer  drives  a  team  across  the  heavenly 
field  existed  in  very  early  times  in  Babylon  and  Syria,  as 
well  as  in  Persia  and  in  Greece.  "The  horses  of  fire  and 
the  chariot  of  fire"  which  carried  up  the  prophet  Elijah 
in  a  whirlwind28  are  very  probably  the  horses  and  the 
chariot  of  the  Sun.  In  the  same  way  when  Mithras '  mis- 
sion on  earth  was  fulfilled,  he  was  conveyed  in  the  chariot 
of  Helios  to  the  celestial  spheres  over  the  ocean,  as  we  see 

24  Cf.  my  Etudes  syriennes,  p.  91  s. 

25  Ibid.,  p.  92,  fig.  41. 

^lUd.,  p.  94,  fig.  42;  cf.  below,  p.  165. 

27  Cf.  ibid.,  p.  95  s. 

28  II  Beg.,  2,  11. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     157 

on  the  reliefs  found  in  his  temples,  and  the  happy  lot 
which  the  hero  had  won  for  himself  he  granted  also  to  his 
followers.  The  emperors  in  particular  were  commonly 
reputed  to  become  companions  of  the  Sun-god  after  death, 
as  they  had  been  under  his  protection  in  life,  and  to  drive 
with  him  up  to  the  summit  of  the  eternal  vaults.  Accord- 
ing to  a  papyrus  recently  found  in  Egypt,29  Phoebus, 
when  informing  the  people  of  the  death  of  Trajan  and 
the  accession  of  Hadrian,  stated  in  set  terms,  "I  have  just 
risen  with  Trajan  on  a  car  drawn  by  white  horses,  and  I 
come  to  you,  0  people,  to  announce  that  a  new  prince, 
Hadrian,  has  made  all  things  subject  to  him,  by  his  virtue 
and  by  the  fortune  of  his  divine  father. ' '  The  writers  and 
the  figured  monuments  show  us  other  deified  rulers  win- 
ning to  heaven  in  a  similar  way.  At  the  very  end  of 
paganism  an  oracle,  addressing  Julian  the  Apostate,  pre- 
dicted that  he  would  be  "  conducted  to  Olympus  in  a 
flaming  chariot  shaken  by  stormy  whirlwinds,  and  would 
reach  the  paternal  palace  of  ethereal  light."30  It  was  not 
only  princes  who  were  privileged  to  be  drawn  by  the 
swift  team  of  the  royal  star.  The  chariot  appears  on 
tombs  of  very  humble  persons  to  suggest  their  lot  in  after 
life.31 

Yet  more  rapid  was  another  method  of  mounting  up  to 
the  stars.  Among  all  the  peoples  of  the  eastern  Mediter- 
ranean basin  the  idea  was  anciently  spread  that  the 
essence  or  the  spirit  which  animates  man  escapes  from 
the  body  in  the  shape  of  a  bird,  especially  a  bird  of  prey, 
for  in  order  not  to  perish  this  soul  must  feed  on  blood, 
the  principle  of  life.  The  gravestones  and  funeral  vases 
of  Greece  give  us  a  large  number  of  representations  of 
the  bird-soul.32  In  the  Roman  period  vestiges  of  this  con- 
ception persisted.  In  Syria  an  eagle  with  spread  wings 

29  Kornemann,  Klio,  VII,  p.  278;  cf.  Mudes  syriennes,  p.  98,  n.  3. 
soEunap.,  Hist.,  fr.  26  (F.  H.  G.  IV,  25;  cf.  Etudes  syriennes,  p.  104). 
si  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  102. 

32  Weichert,  Der  Seelenvogel  in  der  alien  Literatur  und  Eunst,  Leipzig, 
1902;  see  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  93. 


158  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

occupies  on  tombs  the  place  filled  elsewhere  by  the  por- 
trait of  the  dead  man.33  Magic  had  retained  this  ancient 
belief  with  not  a  few  others,  for  superstition  picks  up 
many  ideas  that  have  dropped  out  with  the  progress  of 
religion.  Sorcerers  asserted  that  they  could  cause  wings 
to  grow  from  the  backs  of  their  dupes,  so  as  to  enable 
them  to  soar  up  to  heaven.  One  of  the  marvels  which 
miracle-mongers  most  frequently  boasted  of  working  was 
that  of  ascending  into  the  air.  The  phenomena  of  levita- 
tion  are  said  to  be  produced  at  all  periods.  When  writers 
tell  us  that  the  pure  soul  " flies  away"  to  the  sky  on  swift 
wings,  the  expression,  which  since  Plato34  has  been  often 
repeated,  and  is  still  in  use  nowadays,  is  no  mere  meta- 
phor but  rather  a  traditional  expression,  first  taken  in 
its  material  sense  and  preserved  in  language,  ultimately 
acquiring  a  figurative  meaning.  A  late  epigram  composed 
on  Plato's  burial  place35  says:  " Eagle,  why  art  thou 
perched  above  this  tomb  and  why  dost  thou  look  at  the 
gods'  starry  dwelling? — I  am  the  image  of  Plato's  soul 
who  has  flown  away  to  Olympus.  The  earth  of  Attica 
holds  his  earth-born  body. ' '  Lucian  in  his  Icaromenippus 
ridiculed  the  claims  of  the  philosophers,  showing  Menfp- 
pus  attaching  wings  to  his  shoulders  in  order  that  he 
might  take  his  flight  to  the  stars  and  thus  learn  the  secrets 
of  the  world. 

The  original  idea  of  the  bird-soul  was  transformed  into 
that  of  the  soul  lifted  aloft  by  a  bird.  It  was  in  Syria  that 
this  change  took  place.36  A  widely  held  belief  in  the 
Roman  period  was  that  the  soul  was  carried  away  by  an 
eagle,  which  in  Syria  was  the  bird  of  the  sun.  The  sun 
being  conceived  as  a  winged  disk  which  flew  through  the 

33  Etudes  syriennes,  p.  38  ss. 

34  Phaedr.,  p.  246  C. 

ss  Anth.  Pal.,  VII,  62=Diog.  Laert.,  Ill,  44;  cf.  Etudes  syriennes,  p.  88: 

Aleri  tItttc  ptfiynas  virtp  T&<pov;  f)  tLvos,  eiir4t 

darepoivTa  deCov  oIkov  airo<TKOTr£et.s; — 
tyvxv*  dfti  nXdrwi'os  dTroTTTafi^vvs  els"0\v/xirov 
e'lKfhv  <ru>fxa  5£  yrj  yriyev&s   'Arflis  ?%6t. 
36  Cf.  Etudes  syriennes,  p.  57  ss. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     159 

celestial  spaces  could  easily  be  connected  with  an  eagle. 
The  king  of  birds  was  the  servant  or  the  incarnation  of 
the  star-king,  to  whom  he  bore  his  precious  burden.  This 
is  why  an  eagle,  preparing  for  flight  and  holding  the 
crown  of  victory,  is  a  usual  motif  of  sepulchral  decoration 
at  Hierapolis  and  throughout  northern  Syria.  The  power- 
ful bird  of  prey  lifted  not  with  his  claws,  as  he  did 
Ganymede,  but  on  his  back,  mortals  who  rose  to  heaven. 
This  soul-bearing  eagle  passed  to  Italy  with  the  cere- 
monial of  the  apotheosis.  At  the  funeral  rites  of  em- 
perors at  Rome  there  was  always  fastened  to  the  top  of 
the  pyre,  on  which  the  corpse  was  to  be  consumed,  an  eagle 
which  was  supposed  to  bear  aloft  the  monarch's  soul,  and 
art  frequently  represents  the  busts  of  the  Caesars  resting 
on  an  eagle  in  the  act  of  taking  flight,  by  way  of  suggest- 
ing their  apotheosis.  The  eagle,  which  is  the  bird  of  the 
Baals,  solar  gods,  carries  to  his  master  those  who  have 
been  his  servants  and  representatives  in  the  world  below. 
This  kind  of  aviation  was  not  peculiar  to  monarchs.  The 
eagle  often  has  this  meaning  in  funeral  art.  I  will  instance 
a  stele,  found  in  Rome  and  preserved  in  the  museum  of 
Copenhagen.37  On  this  a  young  man,  draped  in  a  toga,  is 
comfortably  seated  on  an  eagle,  which  is  rising  to  the  sky ; 
to  his  right  a  winged  child,  bearing  a  torch,  seems  to  point 
out  the  way  to  him.  It  is  Phosphorus,  the  morning  star, 
whom  Roman  art  often  represented  in  this  form,  before 
the  chariot  of  the  Sun.  An  altar  recalls  the  cult  of  which 
the  dead  man  will  henceforth  be  the  object  on  earth,  and 
a  wreath  on  the  pediment  stands  for  the  victory  which  he 
has  won  over  death. 

All  these  supposed  methods  of  reaching  heaven  are 
most  primitive:  they  start  from  the  supposition  that  a 
load  has  to  be  lifted  up ;  they  hardly  imply  a  separation 
of  body  and  soul ;  and  they  are  antecedent  to  the  distinc- 
tions which  philosophers  established  between  different 
parts  of  man's  being.  They  are  religious  survivals  of  very 

37  Ittudes  syriennes,  1917,  p.  87,  fig.  39. 


160  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

ancient  conceptions  which  only  vulgar  minds  still  inter- 
preted literally.  These  mechanical  means  of  raising  one- 
self to  the  starry  vault  carry  us  back  to  an  extremely  low 
stage  of  beliefs.  Hence  theologians  no  longer  accepted 
them  save  as  symbols.  Other  doctrines  of  a  more  ad- 
vanced character  were  developed  and  these  constituted 
the  true  teaching  of  the  great  Oriental  mysteries,  just  as 
they  had  secured  the  adhesion  of  thinking  men.  They 
connected  the  ascent  of  the  soul  after  death  with  physical 
and  ethical  theories  and  thus  caused  sidereal  immortality 
to  enter  into  the  order  of  the  universe.38 

The  first  of  these  theories  was  that  of  solar  attraction. 
We  have  already  described  the  doctrine,  certainly  of 
eastern  origin,  that  the  sun  by  a  series  of  emissions  and 
absorptions  projected  souls  onto  the  earth  and  drew  them 
back  to  itself.39  This  unceasing  action  of  the  resplendent 
luminary  of  day  was  exercised  through  the  force  of  its 
rays,40  and  very  old  Greek  ideas  here  mingled  with  the 
"Chaldean"  theory.  The  Pythagoreans  already  believed 
that  the  glittering  particles  of  dust  which  danced  cease- 
lessly in  a  sunbeam  (gvcr juara)  were  souls  descending 
from  the  ether  borne  on  the  wings  of  light.  The  air,  they 
said,  was  "full  of  souls,' '  we  might  say  "of  germs' '  or 
"microbes."41  They  added  that  this  sunbeam,  passing 
through  the  air  and  through  water  down  to  the  depths 
of  the  sea,  gave  life  to  all  things  below.42  This  idea  per- 
sisted under  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  theology  of  the 
mysteries.  Souls  descended  upon  the  earth  and  reas- 
cended  after  death  towards  the  sky,  thanks  to  the  slanting 
rays  of  the  sun  which  served  as  the  means  of  transport. 
The  sun  is  the  avaycoyevs,  "he  who  brings  up  from 
below. ' '  On  Mithraic  reliefs  one  of  the  seven  rays  which 
surround  the  head  of  Sol  Invictus  (0ebs  e^ra/ms)  is  seen 

38  See  Introd.,  p.  28. 

39  See  Lecture  III,  p.  100. 

40  Etudes  syriennes,  p.  106  s.;  cf.  Lecture  III,  p.  101. 
4i  See  Lecture  I,  p.  59. 

42  Diog.  Laert,,  VIII,  1,  27. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     161 

disproportionately  prolonged  towards  the  dying  Bull,  in 
order  to  awake  the  new  life  that  is  to  spring  from  the 
death  of  the  cosmogonic  animal.  "The  Sun,"  says  the 
Emperor  Julian,  "by  the  invisible,  immaterial,  divine  and 
pure  essence  which  dwells  in  its  rays,  attracts  and  raises 
the  blessed  souls."43 

In  this  theory  it  is  to  the  power  of  the  Sun,  the  great 
cosmic  divinity,  that  the  ascension  of  the  soul  is  due.  Ac- 
cording to  another  doctrine  the  cause  of  this  ascension 
is  the  physical  nature  of  the  soul. 

This  latter  doctrine  is  set  forth  with  great  precision  by 
Cicero  in  the  Tusculan  Disputations,  and  by  Sextus  Em- 
piricus,  doubtless  after  Posidonius.44  The  soul  is  a  fiery 
breath,  that  is  to  say,  its  substance  is  the  lightest  of  the 
four  elements  which  compose  our  universe.  It  necessarily 
therefore  has  a  tendency  to  rise,  for  it  is  warmer  and 
more  subtle  than  the  gross  and  dense  air  which  encircles 
the  earth.  It  will  the  more  easily  cleave  this  heavy  atmos- 
phere since  nothing  moves  more  rapidly  than  a  spirit.  It 
must  therefore  in  its  continuous  ascent  pass  through  that 
zone  of  sky  where  gather  the  clouds  and  the  rain  and 
where  blow  the  winds,45  and  which  by  reason  of  exhala- 
tions from  the  earth  is  moist  and  misty.  When  finally  it 
reaches  the  spaces  filled  by  an  air  which  is  rarefied  and 
warmed  by  the  sun,  it  finds  elements  similar  to  its  own 
substance  and,  ceasing  to  ascend,  is  maintained  in  equilib- 
rium.46 Henceforth  it  dwells  in  these  regions  which  are  its 
natural  home,  continually  vivified  by  the  same  principles 
as  those  that  feed  the  everlasting  fires  of  the  stars. 

We  shall  presently  see  how  the  Platonists  modified 
this  Stoic  doctrine,  and  substituted  that  of  the  "vehicle" 
(o'x^a)  of  souls. 

These  theories  made  it  easier  than  the  first  one  had 

43  Jul.,  Or.,  V,  p.  172  C. 

44Cic,  Tusc,  I,  42  as.;  Sextus  Empir.,  Adv.  Math.,  IX,  71,  4;  cf.  above, 
Introd.,  p.  29. 

45  Winds  and  souls,  see  below,  Lecture  VII,  p.  185. 

46  See  below,  Lecture  VII,  p.  186;  cf.  Lecture  II,  p.  81. 


162  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

done  to  establish  a  firm  connection  between  ethical  be- 
liefs concerning  future  destiny  and  physical  theories 
about  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and  the  nature  of 
man.  The  soul  is  never  conceived  by  these  theologians  as 
purely  spiritual  or  immaterial,  but  when  it  abandons 
itself  to  the  passions  it  becomes  gross;  its  substance 
grows  more  corporeal ;  and  then  it  is  too  heavy  to  rise  to 
the  stars  and  gain  the  spheres  of  light.47  Its  mere  density 
will  compel  it  to  float  in  our  mephitic  atmosphere  until 
it  has  been  purified  and  consequently  lightened.  Thus  the 
door  is  opened  to  all  doctrines  concerning  punishment 
beyond  the  grave.  We  shall  show  in  another  lecture48  how 
the  soul  was  to  be  purified  by  passing  through  the  ele- 
ments which  moved  in  sublunary  space — air,  water  and 
fire. 

But,  side  by  side  with  physical  ideas,  mythological  be- 
liefs always  retained  their  sway.  According  to  the  com- 
mon creed,  the  air  was  peopled  with  troops  of  perverse 
and  subtle  demons.  They  were,  it  was  thought,  the  guilty 
souls  whose  faults  condemned  them  to  wander  perpetu- 
ally near  the  surface  of  the  earth.  They  took  pleasure  in 
inflicting  a  thousand  tortures  on  their  fellow  souls,  when 
these,  by  their  impiety,  were  left  defenceless  against 
them.  But  succouring  powers  protected  the  good  against 
these  perverse  spirits.  Thus  the  atmosphere  became  the 
scene  of  an  unceasing  struggle  between  demons  of  every 
kind,  a  struggle  in  which  the  salvation  of  the  soul  was  at 
stake. 

The  dangers  to  which  the  soul  was  exposed  did  not 
always  end  when,  after  having  crossed  the  most  danger- 
ous zone  of  the  air,  it  reached  the  moon.49  Those  who  be- 
lieved that  souls  must  pass  through  the  planetary  spheres 
conceived  these  as  pierced  by  a  gate  guarded  by  a 
commander  (dpxcov)  or,  as  they  were  also  called,  by  toll 

47  See  Introd.,  p.  29;  cf.  Lecture  VII,  p.  185. 

48  See  below,  Lecture  VII,  p.  185. 

49  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  93,  and  p.  96  s. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     163 

gatherers  (rekaivia).  The  mystics  claimed  to  supply  their 
initiates  with  the  passwords  which  caused  the  incorrupti- 
ble keepers  to  yield.  They  taught  prayers  or  incanta- 
tions which  rendered  hostile  powers  propitious;  by 
1 '  seals ' '  and  unctions  they  made  their  followers  immune 
against  the  blows  of  such  enemies.  These  instructions, 
which  were  previously  given  to  the  dead  in  order  to  facili- 
tate their  descent  to  the  nether  world  (p.  148), now  served 
to  make  the  ascent  to  heaven  easy.  In  this  matter  the 
magicians  emulated  the  priests,  even  claiming  to  show  to 
their  clients  the  way  leading  to  heaven  during  life.  The 
papyrus  of  Paris,  wrongly  called  the  "Mithraic  Lit- 
urgy,"50 affords  the  most  characteristic  example  of  this 
superstitious  literature. 

But,  above  all,  the  secret  cults  claimed  to  supply  the 
soul  with  a  guide  to  lead  it  during  its  risky  journey 
through  the  whirlwinds  of  air,  water  and  fire  and  the 
moving  spheres  of  heaven.  Plato  in  the  Phaedo  had 
already  spoken  of  this  demon  leader  (riye/xcov)  of  the 
dead,51  and  the  same  word  is  applied  to  the  "psycho- 
pompos, ' '  whether  demon,  angel  or  god,  not  only  by  Neo- 
Platonist  philosophers  but  also  in  epitaphs.  Thus  the 
funeral  inscription  of  a  sailor,  who  died  at  Marseilles,52 
says:  " Among  the  dead  there  are  two  companies;  one 
moves  upon  the  earth,  the  other  in  the  ether  among  the 
choruses  of  stars.  I  belong  to  the  latter,  for  I  have  ob- 
tained a  god  for  my  guide."  This  divine  escort  of  souls 
frequently  retains  the  name  of  Hermes  in  conformity 
with  the  old  mythology,  for  Hermes  is  the  Psychopompos 
who  leads  the  shades  to  their  subterranean  abode  and 
moreover  summons  them  and  brings  them  back,  in  another 
migration,  to  the  earth.  An  epigram  belonging  to  the  first 
century  of  our  era  apostrophises  the  deceased  with  these 
words:  "Hermes  of  the  winged  feet,  taking  thee  by  the 
hand,  has  conducted  thee  to  Olympus  and  made  thee  to 

so  Dieterieh,  Eine  Mithrasliturgie  2,  1910. 

51  Plato,  Phaedo,  p.  107  D,  108  B. 

52Kaibel,  Epigr.  Graeca,  650=Inscr.  Sic.  Ital,  2461. 


164  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

shine  among  the  stars."53  But  often  the  role  of  escort 
devolved  on  the  Sun  himself.  We  have  seen  (p.  157)  that 
at  the  end  of  paganism  the  star-king  is  figured  as  carry- 
ing mortals  in  his  flying  chariot ;  and  the  emperor  Julian, 
at  the  end  of  his  satire  on  the  Caesars,  represents  himself 
as  addressed  by  Hermes,  who  states  that  in  causing  him  to 
know  Mithras  he  rendered  propitious  to  him  this  leader- 
god  (rjyefxova  6e6v),  who  will  enable  him  to  leave  the 
earth  with  the  hope  of  a  better  lot. 

In  these  beliefs  we  see  persisting  to  the  end  of  pagan- 
ism the  old  conception  that  heroes  could  be  carried  off  to 
heaven,  body  and  soul.54  It  was  never  entirely  given  up 
by  popular  faith,  and  appears  notably  in  ideas  as  to  the 
apotheosis  of  the  emperors,  although  learned  theology 
rose  in  arms  against  it  and  affirmed  that  nothing  terres- 
trial could  be  admitted  into  the  ethereal  spheres.  An- 
tinous  and  Apollonius  of  Tyana  are  thus  said  to  have 
been  borne  away  and  to  have  continued  without  interrup- 
tion the  life  they  had  begun  on  earth.55 

#  #  *  #  # 

We  are  thus  brought  to  ask  ourselves  how,  at  the  very 
time  when  the  conception  of  the  journey  of  the  dead  was 
being  transformed,  the  idea  entertained  as  to  the  physical 
character  of  the  dead  also  underwent  a  change.  Let  us, 
in  conclusion,  seek  briefly  to  trace  the  course  of  this 
evolution. 

Originally,  as  we  said  at  the  beginning  of  these  lec- 
tures, two  beliefs  as  to  life  beyond  the  grave  existed 
together.  On  the  one  hand,  the  illusion  was  kept  that  the 
corpse  which  lay  in  the  grave  continued  in  some  obscure 
way  to  live,  feel  and  nourish  itself  there.  Side  by  side  with 
this  simple  faith  the  idea  was  maintained  that  the  soul 
is  a  breath,  emitted  by  the  dying  man,  which  floats  in 
the  atmosphere  and  which  reproduces,  when  it  makes 

53  Haussoullier,  Revue  de  philologie,  XXIII,  1909,  p.  6;  cf.  Lecture  III, 
p.  105. 

54  See  above,  Lecture  IV,  p.  112. 

55  Cf.  Bolide,  Psyche,  II*,  p.  376  s. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     165 

itself  visible  in  dreams  and  apparitions  or  in  remem- 
brance, the  outward  appearance  of  the  person  from  whom 
it  issued.56 

These  two  conceptions  of  life  beyond  the  grave  are 
combined  in  the  nature  with  which  the  inhabitants  of  the 
infernal  regions  are  credited,  and  give  these  fantastic 
beings  a  character  full  of  contradictions.  Cicero  justly 
remarks  that  acts  are  attributed  to  them  which  would  be 
conceivable  only  if  they  had  bodies.  Thus  they  are  sup- 
posed to  speak,  although  they  have  neither  tongue,  palate, 
throats  nor  lungs.57  The  common  belief  was  indeed  that 
the  shades  fed,  even  in  their  deep  abode,  on  the  offerings 
made  on  their  burial  places ;  and  the  pains  which  might 
be  inflicted  on  them  presupposed  that  they  had  retained 
the  sensibility  and  needs  of  men;  while  the  pleasures 
accorded  to  them  in  the  Elysian  Fields  were  in  part  very 
material — to  participate  in  a  banquet  was  an  essential 
part  of  them.58 

Hence,  when  the  dead  showed  themselves,  they  were 
sometimes  given  the  appearance  not  of  the  living  being 
but  of  the  corpse :  it  was  the  body,  as  it  was  when  buried, 
which  issued  from  the  entrails  of  the  earth.  Ennius,  when 
he  showed  Homer  appearing  to  him  in  a  dream,  said  that 
the  shades  were  "of  prodigious  paleness,"59  and  the  idea 
is  often  expressed  that  ghosts  are  bloodless  in  colour. 
Not  only  are  their  faces  wan :  their  mouths  are  mute ;  they 
are  the  taciti,  the  silent  Manes.  Much  more,  it  is  some- 
times in  the  form  of  skeletons  that  they  return  to  terrify 
men.  The  most  usual  way  of  figuring  the  soul  in  funeral 
sculpture  is  to  show  a  person  completely  wrapped,  save 
for  his  face,  in  a  long  garment,  the  shroud  in  which  his 
body  was  buried.60 

But  on  the  other  hand,  side  by  side  with  this  more  or 

56  See  above,  Lecture  I,  p.  45  ss.,  59  ss. 

57  Cf.  Cic,  Tusc,  I,  16,  37. 

ss  See  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  199  ss. 

59  Lucretius,  I,  124:   "Simulacra  modis  pallentia  miris." 

so  See,  for  instance,  above,  p.  156. 


166  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

less  unconscious  belief  as  to  a  survival  of  the  body,  the 
soul  continued  to  be  regarded  as  a  light  breath.  The 
beings  who  peopled  the  infernal  regions  were  imagined 
as  almost  immaterial  forms.  They  were  called  " shades' ' 
(ovacu,  umbrae)  or  " images' '  (eiScuXa,  simulacra).  The 
former  term  implies,  besides  the  idea  of  a  subtle  essence, 
the  notion  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  dusky  spaces  under- 
ground were  black,  and  this  is  in  fact  the  colour  often 
given  to  them.  It  is  also  the  colour  of  the  victims  offered 
them  and  of  the  mourning  garments  worn  in  their  honour. 
These  sombre  phantoms,  which  passed  unnoticed  in  the 
darkness  of  night,  returned  after  the  sunset  to  haunt  the 
houses  of  men,  and  this  is  why  the  Inferi  or  beings  of 
the  nether  world  are  above  all  appeased  by  nocturnal 
sacrifices. 

The  words  etSwXoz/,  simulacrum,  imago,  especially  ex- 
press the  complete  resemblance  of  the  dead  to  the  living. 
Are  not  the  beings  who  return  to  talk  with  us  in  dreams 
exactly  like  the  persons  we  have  known?  This  tenuous 
image  was  compared  to  the  reflection  seen  on  limpid 
waters  or  on  the  polished  surface  of  metal.61  Both  alike 
reproduced  the  features  and  colour  and  imitated  the 
movements  of  those  whom  they  faithfully  expressed.  This 
is  why  magicians  often  made  use  of  mirrors  in  order  to 
evoke  the  spirits  of  the  departed.62  As  to  the  nature  of 
these  simulacra,  the  ancients  agree  in  declaring  them  to 
be  material,  for  how  otherwise  could  they  convey  sensual 
impressions?  But  their  substance  is  of  an  extreme  sub- 
tlety. They  are  forms  which  are  corporeal  but  empty, 
flimsy,  impalpable,  often  of  such  rarity  that  they  remain 
invisible.  They  are  compared  to  the  wind,  for  the  wind 
is  the  air  in  motion,  to  a  vapour,  to  a  smoke  which  escapes 
so  soon  as  its  restraint  is  attempted. 

This  shade,  formed  of  a  light  fluid,  has  a  form  which  is 
necessarily  malleable  and  yielding.  The  fact  is  thus  ex- 

ei  Cf.  Proclus,  In  BempuU.,  I,  p.  290,  10  ss.,  Kroll. 

62  On  this  Tcatoptromanteia,  cf.  Bevue  archeologique,  V,  1917,  p.  105  ss.; 
Ganschinietz  in  Bealencycl.,  s.  v. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     167 

plained  that  souls  can  take  on  various  appearances  and 
sometimes  let  themselves  be  seen  as  terrible  monsters, 
especially  if  they  are  the  souls  of  criminals  who  have 
become  maleficent  spirits.63  Heroes,  on  the  contrary, 
whose  virtue  has  enabled  them  to  be  borne  to  heaven, 
appear  to  be  of  more  than  natural  stature  when  they 
descend  from  the  ether;  they  are  surrounded  by  a  radiant 
nimbus,  and  their  resplendent  beauty  strikes  with  admira- 
tion those  who  perceive  them. 

But  here  the  ancients  were  faced  with  the  question  as 
to  whether  that  part  of  the  human  composition  which  won 
to  heaven  was  the  same  as  that  which  descended  to  the 
infernal  regions. 

As  to  this  puzzling  question  there  arose  in  the  Alexan- 
drian period  a  theory  unknown  to  ancient  Greece, — we 
have  already  touched  on  this  point64 — the  theory  that  man 
is  formed  not  of  two  elements  but  of  three,  namely,  the  soul 
(xpvxVy  anima),  the  shade  (o-/aa,  etScoXov,  umbra,  simula- 
crum) and  the  body  (crw^a,  corpus).  This  doctrine 
claimed  to  be  justified  by  a  passage  in  Homer,  in  fact  an 
interpolation,  as  to  the  apotheosis  of  Hercules,  but  it  was 
manifestly  borrowed  from  Egyptian  religion  by  the 
Pythagoreans  of  Alexandria.  For  Egyptian  religion  is 
"polypsychic"  and  distinguishes  different  kinds  of  souls. 
So  the  ka  or  "Double"  has  been  explained  as  a  living  and 
coloured  projection  of  the  individual  whom  it  reproduced 
feature  by  feature,  which  inhabited  the  tomb,  but  could 
leave  it  and  return  to  it  as  freely  as  a  man  to  his 
house.  The  ba'i,  on  the  other  hand,  is  thought  to  be  a  more 
refined  matter  which  enclosed  a  portion  of  the  celestial 
fire  and  which  departed  to  another  world.  Certain  Alex- 
andrian Pythagoreans  therefore  admitted  that  when  the 
soul  was  not  entirely  purified,  it  remained  joined  to  its 
idolon  in  the  infernal  regions,  which  were  for  them  situ- 
ated in  the  atmosphere,  but  they  held  that  when  it  had 

es  See  above,  Lecture  V,  p.  130. 
e*  See  above,  Lecture  II,  p.  79. 


168  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

entirely  freed  itself  from  matter  it  rose  towards  the 
ether,  and  left  only  the  idolon  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the 
earth.65 

This  theory  was  to  be  variously  transformed,  but  it  is 
at  the  foundation  of  all  the  subsequent  development  of 
the  doctrines  as  to  the  return  of  the  soul  to  heaven.  The 
triple  division  most  usually  adopted  is  not  the  one  I  have 
just  cited  but  the  division  into  reason  (vovs  or  TrvevjAa), 
soul  (\jjvxy)  and  body.  What  becomes  in  this  case  of  the 
image  ( ei&cokov  )  ?  The  theologians  assimilated  it  to  the  ir- 
rational soul  or  xjjvxv,  as  opposed  to  the  higher  understand- 
ing. This  image  thus  became  the  seat  not  only  of  vegeta- 
tive and  unconscious  life — a  theory  which  would  be  in 
conformity  with  the  Homeric  sense  of  the  word — but  also 
of  sensitive  and  emotional  life.  This  soul  or  shade  at  first 
remained  united  to  the  nous,  which  it  surrounded  with  its 
vaporous  envelope.  Even  after  it  had  left  the  earthly 
body,  reason  was  still  imprisoned  in  an  aerial  body:  the 
two  dwelt  in  the  infernal  regions,  that  is,  in  sublunary 
space,  until  they  had  been  purified  by  the  elements.  They 
then,  as  we  have  seen  elsewhere,66  left  the  atmospheric 
Hades  in  order  to  be  admitted  into  the  Elysian  Fields, 
that  is  to  say,  into  the  moon.  There  the  thin  veils  in  which 
reason  was  still  wrapped  were  dissolved.  Reason,  a  sub- 
lime essence,  rose  again  towards  the  sun  and  the  higher 
spheres. 

So  the  shades  of  the  old  mythology  had  become  a  gar- 
ment of  which  reason  rid  itself,  when  it  left  this  lower 
world  to  attain  to  its  celestial  home.  But  the  theologians 
disputed  at  length  on  the  origin  of  this  psychic  integu- 
ment. When  it  was  admitted  that  the  passions  and  emo- 
tions were  due  to  the  action  of  the  planets,  the  eiSwW, 
being  conceived,  as  we  have  said,  to  be  the  seat  of  sensi- 
tive life,  had  necessarily  to  be  formed  in  the  seven 
spheres,  through  which  the  soul  passed  as  it  descended 

65  Cf.  Bevue  de  philologie,  XLIV,  1920,  p.  237  ss. 
ee  See  Lecture  III,  p.  103. 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  THE  BEYOND     169 

to  earth,  and  to  be  decomposed  when  it  passed  through 
them  again  in  its  ascension.67  This  is  the  doctrine  sup- 
ported by  the  Neo-Platonists.  They  merely  apply  a  new 
name  to  this  cloak  of  reason,  that  of  vehicle  (ox^a),  which 
is  at  first  synonymous  with  eiScokov  as  this  word  was  last 
accepted.  Plato  in  his  myths  had  several  times  spoken  of 
the  chariot  (o'x^a)  in  which  souls  ascended,  especially  in 
the  famous  passage  of  the  Phaedrus,  where  he  depicted 
them  as  trying  to  follow  the  course  of  the  gods  towards 
the  summit  of  heaven,68  and  above  all  in  the  Timaeus, 
where  he  says  that  God,  having  made  men  equal  in  num- 
ber to  the  stars,  caused  them  to  mount  on  these  stars  as 
on  a  chariot.69  This  vehicle  was,  according  to  the  philoso- 
pher's late  interpreters,  an  ethereal  envelope,  analogous 
to  the  "astral  body"  of  modern  theosophists,  which  grew 
thicker  and  thicker  by  the  accession  of  new  elements,  as 
the  soul  was  gradually  lowered  to  the  earth  ;70  and  it  was 
by  the  composition  of  these  elements  that  the  tempera- 
ment of  the  newly  born  child  was  determined.  This  lumi- 
nous body  was  attracted  after  death  by  stars  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  whence  it  derived  its  origin,  and  in  par- 
ticular by  the  sun,  and  it  thus  acquired  a  force  of  ascen- 
sion which  once  again  bore  divine  reason  to  the  highest 
point  of  the  heavens.  We  will  not  lay  stress  on  the  specu- 
lation of  the  last  masters  of  the  school,  such  as  Jamblichus 
or  Proclus,  who  imagined,  on  the  subject  of  this  subtle 
matter,  yet  more  subtle  distinctions  and  transformed  the 
former  conception  of  the  "vehicle."  It  is  enough  that  we 
have  shown  how  the  old  belief  in  the  shades  who  peopled 
Hades  was  modified,  when  it  came  to  be  thought  that 
souls  travelled  in  the  air  and  among  the  constellations, 
until  at  last  the  Platonist  theory  of  the  psychic  vehicle 
was  reached. 

67  Cf.  Lecture  III,  p.  107. 

es  Plato,  Pha-edr.,  247  B;  cf.  Phaedo,  p.  113  D. 

69  Timaeus,  p.  41  D  E. 

to  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  106  s.,  and  Introd.,  p.  41 ;  cf.  p.  24. 


VII 

THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  AND 
METEMPSYCHOSIS 

HOW  did  belief  in  the  sufferings  of  hell  develop? 
of  what  elements  was  it  formed!  through  what 
vicissitudes  has  it  passed? — these  are  questions 
which  it  is  difficult  to  answer  precisely,  for  the  reason 
that  the  pains  reserved  for  the  impious  in  the  Beyond 
were  in  the  Greco-Latin  world  taught  especially  by 
mystic  sects,  who  placed  them  in  contrast  to  the  bliss 
granted  to  the  initiate.  It  is  possible,  however,  to  note  the 
genesis  and  general  evolution  of  the  opinions  on  this 
point  which  reigned  in  the  Eoman  Empire. 

Already  in  the  Odyssey  three  who  are  surpassingly 
guilty  detach  themselves  from  the  grey  crowd  of  the 
shades  who  lead  an  uncertain  life  in  Hades— Tityus,  Tan- 
talus and  Sisyphus.1  All  three  committed  grave  assaults 
on  the  gods,  who  in  revenge  condemned  them  to  eternal 
torture:  the  gigantic  body  of  Tityus  is  unceasingly 
gnawed  by  vultures ;  Tantalus  is  plunged  in  a  pond  the 
water  of  which  flees  from  his  eager  lips,  while  above  him 
is  a  tree  of  which  the  fruit  escapes  from  his  hand  as  he 
wishes  to  seize  it ;  Sisyphus  unendingly  rolls  to  the  top  of 
a  hill  a  rock  which  always  tumbles  back  down  the  slope. 
These  souls,  in  order  that  their  suffering  may  be  more 
cruelly  felt,  have  in  Hades  a  vitality  beyond  that  of  the 
common  run  of  the  dead,  who  are  pale,  flimsy,  half 
animate  phantoms.2 

To  this  Homeric  triad  of  sufferers  especially  chastised 

i  Odyssey,  XI,  576  s. 

2  Cf.  Kohde,  Psyche,  I*,  p.  61  ss. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  171 

by  the  divinity,  further  unhappy  souls,  whom  an  inex- 
piable crime  had  vowed  to  everlasting  pains,  were  after- 
wards added :  Ixion  turning  on  the  wheel  to  which  he  was 
fixed,  Theseus  and  Pirithous  enchained,  the  Danaides 
carrying  water  in  a  leaking  vessel,  and  others.  Thus  was 
formed  a  group  of  legendary  personalities  whose  crimes 
and  punishments  came  to  be  the  traditional  themes  of 
every  description  and  representation  of  Tartarus  in 
poetry  and  art  until  the  downfall  of  paganism. 

But  these  convicted  souls  were  no  longer  conceived,  as 
they  were  by  Homer,  to  be  exceptional  offenders  on  whom 
the  gods  avenged  a  personal  insult.  They  had  come  to  be 
the  prototypes  of  men  who,  for  like  faults,  would  be  simi- 
larly chastised,  the  terrible  examples  of  the  lot  which 
divine  wrath  reserved  for  all  who  provoked  it.  They  were 
explained  as  the  incarnations  of  the  different  passions 
and  vices,  the  representatives  of  the  various  classes  of 
sinners  on  each  of  which  a  determined  punishment  was 
inflicted. 

The  first  authors  of  this  new  conception  seem  to  have 
been  the  Orphic  and  Pythagorean  theologians.  Homer 
names  only  one  class  of  criminals  whom  the  Erinyes  tor- 
ture beneath  the  ground,  the  perjurers.  But  here  again 
the  motive  of  the  punishment  is  a  direct  provocation  of 
the  gods ;  by  the  formula  of  execration  which  ended  their 
oath,  the  perjurers  had  surrendered  themselves  to  divine 
vengeance,  if  they  broke  their  faith;  and  this  is  why  a 
place  apart  among  the  sufferers  of  the  underworld  was 
always  kept  for  them. 

The  Orphics,  who  were  the  first  to  separate  in  the  un- 
derworld the  region  of  Tartarus  from  the  Elysian  Fields, 
were  also  innovators  as  regarded  the  character  of  these 
contrasting  dwelling-places.  Notably,  there  was  among 
their  books  a  Descent  into  Hades  (Kara/3acri9  ets  "AiSou), 
which  described  its  joys  and  pains.  If  the  blessed  were 
admitted  to  the  flowery  meadows  where  they  enjoyed  the 
delight  of  a  perpetual  feast,  the  profane,  those  who  had 
not  been  purified  by  the  rites  of  the  sect,  were  plunged  in 


172  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

darkness  and  mire,  which  was  either  intended  to  recall 
the  moral  nncleanness  of  all  who  had  not  taken  part  in  the 
cathartic  ceremonies,  or  else  implied  that  these  shades 
were  figured  like  the  penitents  who,  seated  in  the  mud  of 
the  road,  proclaimed  their  sins  to  passers-by.3 

Orphism  conceived  the  suffering  undergone  beyond  the 
tomb  as  an  expiation.  The  soul  which  had  not  been  able  on 
earth  to  keep  itself  from  the  pollution  of  matter  and  to 
escape  from  the  passions,  thus  found  again  the  qualities 
which  it  had  lost.  After  a  fixed  term,  it  returned  to 
another  life  wherein  it  had  another  chance  to  render  itself 
worthy  of  the  lot  of  the  Blessed— we  shall  speak  presently 
of  this  transmigration.  Moreover,  the  intercession  of  the 
living  in  favour  of  the  dead,  the  sacrifices  offered  up  on 
their  behalf,  could,  according  to  the  Orphics,  deliver  them 
from  their  pains. 

But  the  Orphics  taught  also  that  side  by  side  with  those 
who  thus  purified  themselves  in  infernal  regions  before 
returning  to  earth,  there  were  others,  more  guilty,  who 
were  vowed  to  eternal  punishment.  The  old  Homeric 
belief  was  thus  taken  up  and  developed.  The  evil  souls, 
whose  ways  nothing  could  mend,  were  immured  for  ever 
in  the  underground  prison,  where  they  became  the  com- 
panions of  the  great  criminals  whom  mythology  plunged 
in  Tartarus.  This  capital  distinction  between  the  two 
classes  of  the  inhabitants  of  hell,  those  condemned  for  a 
time  and  those  condemned  in  perpetuity,  was  transmitted 
down  to  Virgil  and  appears  distinctly  in  the  Aeneid. 

Infernal  justice  is  a  court  of  appeal  from  earthly  jus- 
tice. Like  the  City,4  Hades  has  its  tribunal,  but  the  judges 
who  sit  there  are  infallible;  it  has  its  laws  which  are 
unremittingly  applied  to  whoever  has  broken  those  of  his 
country;  it  has  its  executioners,  responsible  for  carrying 
out  its  sentences — the  Furies,  and  later  the  demons. 
Similarly,  the  pains  of  Hades  are  always  conceived  as  an 

3  Cf.  Plut.,  Be  superst,  7,  p.  168  D. 

4  Cf.  above,  Lecture  II,  p.  75. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  173 

imitation  of  those  which  were  every  day  inflicted  on  crimi- 
nals. The  guilty  were  bound  in  unbreakable  chains,  as  in 
the  prisons ;  the  Erinyes  struck  them  with  their  whips,  as 
they  were  flogged  at  the  order  of  the  magistrates ;  fierce 
monsters  bit  them,  as  their  bodies  were  thrown  to  the 
beasts  or  devoured  by  them  in  an  infamous  charnel-place. 
The  old  custom  of  retaliation  continued  to  be  followed  in 
the  other  world,  where  the  dead  were  treated  as  in  life 
they  had  treated  their  victims.5  Elsewhere  we  can  recog- 
nise an  imitation  of  the  torments  inflicted  on  the  accused, 
who  were  subjected  to  torture  to  make  them  confess  their 
fault. 

Penal  law  enacted  a  determined  punishment  for  every 
kind  of  offence ;  the  law  which  ruled  in  Hades  had  simi- 
larly to  inflict  particular  pains  for  each  kind  of  fault. 
This  logical  deduction  led  to  a  new  development  of  penal- 
ties beyond  the  grave.  As  gradually  the  moralists  and 
criminalists  detailed  and  classified  the  breaches  of  divine 
and  human  law,  so  the  authors  of  apocalypses  multiplied 
the  categories  of  those  who  suffered  in  the  nether  world. 
They  imagined  the  most  fearful  tortures,  in  order  to 
frighten  sinners  and  drive  them  to  seek  in  some  religious 
purification  a  means  of  escape  from  so  terrible  a  lot.  In 
a  myth  which  Plutarch  has  introduced  into  his  book  on 
the  belated  vengeance  of  the  gods,6  he  shows  us  hypo- 
crites, who  have  hidden  their  wretchedness  under  the 
appearance  of  virtue,  obliged  to  reverse  their  entrails  so 
that  the  inner  side  of  them  may  be  seen,  haters  who 
devour  each  other,  and  misers  plunged  into  and  plucked 
out  from  lakes  of  burning  gold,  icy  lead  and  jagged  iron. 

The  text  which  describes  these  sufferings  of  the  other 
world  in  greatest  detail  is  the  fragment  of  the  apocryphal 
apocalypse  of  Peter,  which  was  found  in  Egypt  some 
thirty  years  ago  and  dates  at  least  from  the  second  cen- 
tury of  our  era.  The  vision  of  hell  here  opposed  to  that  of 
heaven  is  like  a  first  sketch  for  the  tragic  picture  of  the 

s  Cf.  Dieterich,  Nelcyia,  p.  206  ss. 

6  Plut.,  De  sera  num.  vind.,  p.  567  B. 


174  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

dwelling  of  the  damned  which  Dante  was  to  draw  in  his 
Inferno.  The  fragment  enumerates  a  long  series  of  crim- 
inals who  are  punished  by  black-robed  angels  and  receive 
the  treatment  appropriate  to  the  nature  of  their  faults. 
Blasphemers  are  hanged  by  the  tongue;  the  mouths  of 
false  witnesses  are  filled  with  fire ;  the  rich  who  have  been 
merciless  to  the  poor  roll,  clothed  in  rags,  on  sharp  and 
burning  pebbles.  Other  tortures  are  like  the  sports  of 
macabre  fancy:  thus  adulterers  are  hanged  by  the  feet, 
their  heads  plunged  in  burning  mud ;  murderers  are  flung 
into  a  cave  filled  with  serpents  that  bite  them,  the  shades 
of  their  victims  watching  their  anguish. 

A  learned  philologist7  has  undertaken  to  prove  that 
this  repulsive  picture  of  the  dwelling  of  the  damned  had 
its  origin  in  the  Orphic  books.  If,  however,  he  refers  to 
ancient,  genuine  Orphism,  he  is  certainly  mistaken.  The 
light  fantasy  of  the  ancient  Greeks  never  laid  heavy 
stress  on  the  horrors  of  Tartarus ;  their  luminous  genius 
took  no  pleasure  in  describing  these  dark  atrocities.8 
There  is  no  evidence  that  they  ever  formulated,  point  by 
point,  a  penal  code  which  applied  in  the  kingdom  of  Pluto. 
The  Romans,  whose  legal  mind  might  have  led  them  to  do 
so,  were  kept  from  such  aberrations  by  their  lack  of 
imagination.  Their  infernal  mythology  remained  rudi- 
mentary: even  Virgil,  who  is  the  interpreter  of  the  Hel- 
lenic tradition,  never  alluded  except  in  passing  to  the 
infinitely  diverse  forms  of  crimes  and  their  punishments.9 
The  Etruscans  peopled  the  infernal  regions  with  awful 
monsters:  they  gave  Charon  and  the  Erinyes  a  wild 
semblance  which  recalls  the  devils  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
but  we  never  find  them  drawing  up  an  inventory  of  the 
breaches  of  the  moral  law  in  order  that  a  punishment 
might  be  applied  to  each  of  these. 

Everything  points  to  the  conclusion  that  this  infernal 

7Dieterich,  Nekyia,  1893  (2d  ed.  1913). 

s  Even  the  devout  Plutarch  rejects  them  as  superstitious  imaginations; 
cf.  Be  super st.,  167  A. 
e  Aen.,  VI,  625-628. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  175 

theology  developed  in  the  East.  The  Egyptians  described 
at  length  in  the  "Book  of  the  Dead"  the  pains  of  those 
who  despised  the  precepts  of  Osiris,  and  illustrated  these 
sufferings  with  pictures.  The  only  pagan  writing  in  which 
we  find  a  classification  of  sinners  and  of  their  torments, 
analogous  to  that  contained  in  the  revelation  of  the 
apocryphal  gospel  of  Peter,  is  the  Mazdean  "Book  of 
ArtaViraf,"  which,  although  of  late  date,  has  antecedents 
which  certainly  go  back  very  far.  The  Persian  religion, 
which  more  than  any  other  brings  the  Spirit  of  Evil  and 
his  hordes  of  demons  into  relief,  was  certainly  not  uncon- 
nected with  the  development  of  infernal  eschatology, 
even  in  the  West,  as  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  these 
demons  succeeded  the  Furies  as  executors  of  the  divine 
sentences.  It  was  under  the  influence  of  these  exotic  reli- 
gions that  the  descriptions  were  propagated  of  refined 
tortures,  terrifying  to  the  adepts  of  the  conventicles  in 
which  they  were  revealed.  The  mysteries  which  spread 
under  the  Koman  Empire  accentuated  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  delights  of  heaven  and  the  sufferings  of  hell. 
These  esoteric  sects  gave  birth  to  the  literature  which 
was  to  be  perpetuated  through  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
inspire  numbers  of  visionaries,  poets  and  artists.  Certain 
authors  of  treatises  on  demonology  in  antiquity  must 
have  revelled  in  inventing  unheard-of  atrocities,  as  later 
the  hagiographers  took  pleasure  in  describing  the  incon- 
ceivable torments  inflicted  on  martyrs. 

Among  all  the  forms  of  punishment  that  by  fire  pre- 
dominates. The  idea  that  the  Erinyes  burnt  the  damned 
with  their  torches  is  ancient,  and  the  Pyriphlegethon  is  an 
igneous  river  surrounding  Tartarus.  Certain  authors 
went  beyond  this.  Lucian  in  his  "True  Histories"  de- 
scribes the  island  of  the  impious  as  an  immense  brazier 
whence  rise  sulphurous  and  pitchy  flames.  Thus  was  born 
into  the  world  in  the  Greco-Roman  period  a  doctrine 
which  was  to  survive  its  fall  and  last  to  modern  times.  The 
ancients  certainly  connected  this  infernal  fire  with  the 
treatment  inflicted  on  those  condemned  to  be  burnt  alive ; 


176  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

but  this  exceptional  punishment  could  not  inspire  an 
eschatological  conception  which  included  all  the  dead.  The 
opinion  has  been  advanced  that  the  choice  of  fire  was  due 
to  the  belief  that  this  element  purifies.10  Fire  would  have 
been  at  first  the  means  of  destroying,  in  the  Beyond  as  in 
this  world,  the  uncleanliness  of  souls,  before  it  became  the 
instrument  of  their  eternal  torture.  But  a  scientific  theory 
seems  here  to  have  influenced  religious  faith.  The  physi- 
cians admitted  the  existence  of  an  incandescent  mass  in 
the  interior  of  the  earth,  which  produced  volcanic  erup- 
tions and  hot  springs.  As  Tartarus  was  situated  in  the 
uttermost  depths  of  the  underworld,  it  was  conceived 
as  a  vast  brazier  in  which  the  sulphur  and  bitumen 
vomited  by  the  volcanoes  were  boiling  for  the  punishment 
of  sinners.11 

But  this  adaptation  of  the  pains  of  Tartarus  to  con- 
temporary physics  could  not  save  them  from  philosophi- 
cal criticism.  While  the  pagan  priests,  to  the  terror  of 
credulous  minds,  imagined  more  and  more  inhuman  pun- 
ishments for  the  guilty  souls,  the  reaction  of  reason 
against  these  cruel  inventions  necessarily  gathered 
strength.  We  have  seen  elsewhere  how  the  polemics  of 
philosophers  forcibly  attacked  these  life-poisoning  beliefs 
and  succeeded  in  a  great  measure  in  destroying  them.12 
Even  those  who  did  not  deny  the  future  life  rejected  these 
fables  of  hell.  There  was  an  attempt  to  save  the  principle 
of  posthumous  retribution  by  replacing  the  doctrine  of 
chastisement  in  Hades  by  that  of  the  metempsychosis. 
We  now  will  try,  while  considering  this  theory  of  trans- 
migration in  its  various  aspects,  to  show  how  such  sub- 
stitution was  effected. 


10  Dieterich,  op.  cit.,  p.  197  ss. 

n  Punishment  by  fire  is  mentioned  for  the  first  time  in  Philodemos, 
Hepl  deG>i>,  XIX,  16  ss.  Philodemos  being  a  Syrian,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  this 
tenet  is  of  Oriental  origin.  Cf.  Diels,  Abhandl.  Alcad.  Berlin,  1916,  p.  80, 
n.  3. 

12  See  above,  Introd.,  pp.  8,  17  s.,  and  Lecture  II,  p.  83. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  177 

The  mind  of  savages  does  not,  like  our  science,  dis- 
tinguish between  three  kingdoms  of  nature.  It  supposes 
the  same  energy  to  animate  all  the  beings  who  surround 
us,  all  of  whom  are  taken  to  be  like  ourselves.  The  primi- 
tives often  attribute  human  or  even  divine  intelligence  to 
beasts ;  and  the  belief  is  found  throughout  the  two  hemi- 
spheres that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  can  incarnate  them- 
selves in  animals  and  even  lodge  in  plants.  Men  refrain 
from  the  slaughter  or  gathering  of  certain  species,  from 
eating  their  flesh  or  fruit,  for  fear  of  hurting  a  chief  or 
relative  who  has  gone  to  inhabit  them.  This  animistic 
basis  is  common  to  a  number  of  different  peoples  and  is 
at  the  foundation  of  the  system  of  metempsychosis. 

But  that  which  makes  the  grandeur  of  this  theory, 
which  won  countless  adepts  throughout  the  centuries  and 
the  world,  is  that  it  transformed  this  naive  idea,  which 
had  no  moral  bearing,  into  a  doctrine  of  retribution  and 
liberation.  To  come  back  to  the  earth,  to  imprison  itself 
in  a  body  which  soiled  and  tortured  it,  became  a  punish- 
ment inflicted  on  the  guilty  soul.  The  soul  could  not  attain 
to  supreme  felicity  until  it  had  purified  itself  by  long 
suffering  and  had  gradually,  through  a  cycle  of  rebirths, 
freed  itself  from  carnal  passions. 

It  is  infinitely  probable  that  this  doctrine  of  reincarna- 
tion in  the  bodies  of  animals  was  in  Greece  a  foreign 
importation.  Herodotus  thought  that  it  came  from 
Egypt,13  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  existed  in  that  coun- 
try in  ancient  times  in  the  form  of  a  regular  succession 
of  transmigrations.  On  the  other  hand,  Greek  metempsy- 
chosis shows  a  resemblance,  striking  even  in  details,  to 
one  of  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  the  religious 
thought  of  India,  that  of  samsara,  which  was  accepted  as 
a  dogma  there  long  before  the  birth  of  Buddhism.  The 
most  probable  opinion  is  that  this  idea  made  its  way 
across  the  Persian  Empire  and  thus  reached  the  Orphics 
and  Pythagoreans.  It  is,  however,  not  unlikely  that,  like 

is  Herodotus,  II,  123. 


178  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

Babylonian  astrology,  Hindu  eschatology  was  propagated 
as  far  as  Egypt  at  a  comparatively  recent  date,  that  is, 
about  the  sixth  century  B.  C,  and  that  the  information 
given  by  the  father  of  history  may  be  at  least  partly 
correct,  Egypt  having  served  as  an  intermediary  between 
India  and  Greece. 

We  have  not,  however,  to  discuss  here  this  problem  of 
the  origins  of  metempsychosis,  nor  to  follow  the  develop- 
ment of  the  doctrine  in  ancient  Greek  philosophy.  In  the 
period  with  which  we  are  concerned,  it  had  already  long 
been  traditional  in  the  Pythagorean  and  Platonic  schools, 
it  was  not  only  a  philosophical  theory  but  also  a  tenet 
admitted  by  several  religions.  We  can  leave  unanswered 
the  questions  of  whether,  as  the  ancients  affirm,  the 
Druids  believed  in  it,  being  in  this  particular  disciples  of 
Pythagoras,  and  of  whether  the  Etruscans  were  per- 
suaded to  it  by  the  teaching  of  the  philosopher  of  Croton. 
It  is,  however,  certain  that  transmigration  was  in  the 
East  an  article  of  widely  held  belief.  We  find  it  accepted 
by  the  mysteries  of  Mithras  and  by  Manicheism,  and  it 
survives  to  our  own  day  in  Syria  among  the  sects  of  the 
Druses,14  the  Yezidis  and  the  Nosairis.15 

What  was  its  form  in  the  Roman  period,  and  how  was  it 
brought  into  harmony  with  traditional  or  acquired  ideas 
as  to  the  future  life? 

The  descent  of  the  soul  from  heaven  to  earth  is  a  fall; 
the  body  is  a  grave  in  which  this  soul  is  buried,  a  prison 
in  which  it  is  captive.  These  old  Pythagorean  doctrines 
were  unceasingly  renewed  and  repeated  down  to  the  end 
of  antiquity.  But  the  Orphic  idea  that  this  degradation 
was  the  chastisement  for  an  original  sin,  the  consequence 
of  a  crime  committed  by  the  Titans,  who  were  the  authors 
of  our  race,  and  that  this  hereditary  taint  of  guilt  had  to 
be  atoned  for  by  their  descendants,  was  either  entirely 

i*  The  Druses  have  even  preserved  the  ancient  doctrine  that  the  number  of 
souls  is  always  the  same  in  the  world.  Cf.  Silvestre  de  Sacy,  Beligion-  des 
Druses,  1838,  II,  p.  459. 

is  Dussaud,  Les  Nosairis,  Paris,  1900,  p.  120  ss. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  179 

forgotten  or  else,  at  the  least,  hardly  regarded.  The 
equally  ancient  conception  that  a  bitter  and  cruel  neces- 
sity constrained  souls  to  incarnate  themselves,  was,  on 
the  contrary,  emphasised  in  consequence  of  the  spread  of 
astrological  fatalism.  Their  alternate  descent  and  ascent 
was  conceived  as  governed  by  a  cosmic  law,  like  the  prog- 
ress and  regress  of  the  planets.16  The  cycle  of  eternal 
generation  (kvkXos  ye^ecrew?),  which  is  eternal,  like  the 
revolutions  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  causes  mind  to  circu- 
late through  matter  which  it  animates. 

This  transmigration  could  be  conceived  in  various 
ways.  A  first  theory,  in  which  the  influence  of  Stoic  pan- 
theism can  be  recognised,  lays  stress  on  the  identity  of 
individual  souls  with  the  universal  soul,  of  which  they  are 
particles.  One  single  divine  principle  awakens  life  in  all 
nature.  It  passes  from  being  to  being,  quickening  their 
various  forms,  and  that  which  is  said  to  be  death  is  no 
more  than  a  migration.  The  number  of  the  souls  that  peo- 
ple the  earth  is  determined  from  the  beginning;  they 
change  their  dwellings  but  not  their  essence.  Hardly  has 
the  human  soul  left  one  body  before  it  enters  another. 
This  continuous  travelling  causes  it  to  go  through  all  the 
degrees  of  the  animal  hierarchy.  It  will  pass,  successively, 
into  a  bird,  a  quadruped,  a  fish,  a  reptile,  and  then  return 
to  man.  This  is  why  it  is  impious  to  devour  the  flesh  of 
our  " lower  brothers' '  and  why  the  sage  must  practise 
vegetarianism.  Some  thinkers,  however,  drawing  logical 
conclusions  from  the  admitted  premises,  asserted  that  the 
life  of  the  vegetable  kingdom  derived  from  the  same 
migration  as  that  of  the  animal  kingdom  and  that  the  soul 
of  man  could  enclose  itself  in  plants.  It  was  to  this  teach- 
ing that  Seneca  alluded  when  he  gave  the  name  of 
Apocolocyntosis,  "Transformation  to  a  Pumpkin,"  to 
his  satire  on  the  apotheosis  of  the  emperor  Claudius. 

This  eschatological  doctrine  had  in  reality  nothing  in 
common  with  morality.  If  an  uninterrupted  chain  unites 

I6  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  101. 


180  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

the  existence  of  all  species,  if  life  propagates  itself  fatally 
from  man  to  the  lower  beings,  this  necessity  seems  to 
exclude  all  hope  of  posthumous  reward.  In  order  to  bring 
the  need  of  a  retribution  in  after  life  into  agreement  with 
the  belief  in  the  fatal  circle  of  migrations,  it  was  stated 
that  the  good  entered  the  souls  of  peaceful  and  tame 
animals,  the  wicked  those  of  wild  beasts.  This  is  why 
Alexander  of  Abonotichos  predicted  to  a  devotee  that  he 
would  be  in  after  life  first  a  camel,  then  a  horse,  and  end 
by  being  a  great  prophet  like  himself  .17  Hermes  Trismegis- 
tus  even  claimed  to  know  that  the  just  became  eagles 
among  birds,  lions  among  quadrupeds,  dragons  among 
reptiles,  dolphins  among  fish.18  But  the  lot  even  of  these 
privileged  souls  might  not  seem  very  enviable.  The  moral- 
ists, therefore,  relaxed  the  rigour  of  the  system  and 
exempted  noble  spirits  from  bestial  degradation.  All  souls 
were  no  longer  condemned  to  dwell  in  the  bodies  of 
animals,  but  only  those  whose  low  inclinations  had 
assimilated  them  to  brutes.  They  inhabited  the  species 
which  best  conformed  to  their  instincts.  Thus  debauchees 
became  hogs  in  another  life ;  cowards  and  sluggards,  fish ; 
the  light-minded  and  frivolous,  birds.19  The  pagan  theolo- 
gians ingeniously  and  laboriously  interpreted  the  story  of 
Circe's  changing  the  companions  of  Ulysses  into  beasts 
as  an  allegory  of  metempsychosis.  Circe  became  the  circle 
of  the  reincarnations  which  were  undergone  by  those  who 
emptied  the  magic  cup  of  pleasure,  and  whence  the  wise 
Ulysses  escaped,  thanks  to  Hermes,  that  is,  to  reason 
which  instructed  him.20 

Transmigration  thus  became  less  an  inevitable  law  of 
nature  than  a  punishment  of  the  guilty.  But  this  punish- 
ment did  not  overtake  only  those  who  were  reborn  in 
animal   shape.   All  physical   defects   and  moral   taints, 

it  Cf.  Lucian,  Alex.,  43. 

is  Hermes  Trismeg.  ap.  Stob.,  Ed.,  I,  49,  p.  398,  16  ss.,  Wachsmuth. 

19  Tim.  Locr.,  p.  104  E. 

20  Ps.-Plut.,  Vita  Eomeri,  126 ;  Porph.  ap.  Stob.,  Eel,  I,  49,  60,  p.  445, 
Wachsmuth. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  181 

which  afflict  man  from  his  entry  into  the  world,  were  the 
consequence  of  his  crimes  in  an  earlier  life.  The  old 
Pythagoreans  combined  the  doctrine  of  the  metempsy- 
chosis with  that  of  the  pains  reserved  for  the  wicked  in  a 
hell  beneath  the  earth.  But  we  have  seen  how  the  belief  in 
the  tortures  of  Hades  was  combated  until  it  yielded  and 
was  discredited.21  Metempsychosis  dared  to  do  without 
these  incredible  subterranean  tortures  and  thereby 
acquired  a  new  importance.  It  supplied  the  means  of 
maintaining  the  dogma  of  posthumous  retribution  with- 
out imposing  a  blind  faith  in  the  foolish  fables  of  the 
poets :  souls  were  held  to  pass  immediately  from  one  body 
to  another  without  leaving  the  earth,  rising  or  sinking 
in  the  scale  of  beings  in  accordance  with  their  merits  or 
demerits.  Thus  Hades  becomes  our  corporeal  life  in 
which  we  expiate  the  faults  of  a  previous  life.  The  Furies 
are  the  passions  which  strike  us  with  their  whips  and 
burn  us  with  their  torches.22  The  ingeniousness  of  the 
theologians  found  an  explanation  for  each  of  the  tortures 
described  by  the  old  mythology.  Tantalus  threatened  by 
the  rock  is  the  man  obsessed  by  the  fear  of  heavenly 
wrath;  Tityus,  whose  entrails  are  devoured  by  vultures, 
is  the  lover  whose  heart  is  gnawed  by  care;  Sisyphus 
rolling  his  rock  becomes  the  ambitious  man  who  exhausts 
himself  with  vain  efforts;  the  Danaides  carrying  water 
in  a  leaking  vessel,  which  empties  as  it  is  filled,  are  the 
insatiable  souls  who  give  themselves  up  to  pleasure  and 
never  have  enough  of  enjoyment.  Even  the  old  precepts 
of  the  Pythagorean  school  were  twisted  from  their  ordi- 
nary meaning  and  became  symbols  of  this  eschatology. 
A  popular  tabu,  admitted  by  the  sect,  was  formulated  in 
the  sentence,  ' '  If  thou  leave  thy  dwelling,  turn  not  round 
lest  the  Erinyes  pursue  thee."  The  first  meaning  of  this 
prohibition,  which  is  known  to  the  folk-lore  of  many 
places,  is  that  to  turn  round  as  one  leaves  one's  house  is 

21  See  above,  p.  176. 

22  See  above,  Lecture  II,  p.  78. 


182  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

to  run  the  risk  of  being  assailed  by  the  spirits  who  haunt 
the  threshold.  But  the  doctors  of  Neo-Pythagorism  did 
not  thus  understand  the  saying.  For  them,  the  dwelling 
was  the  body,  the  Erinyes  the  passions :  when  souls  left 
the  body  they  must  not  return  thither  or  the  passions 
would  attach  themselves  to  them  and  make  them  their 
victims.23 


Here,  however,  we  touch  on  another  form  of  metempsy- 
chosis. The  ancients  make  a  distinction  between  the  doc- 
trine of  reincarnation  or  "reincorporation"  (translating 
exactly  the  Greek  word  /xeTe^crwjLtarwcrL?),  and  rebirth  or 
palingenesis  (Trakiyyeveaia).  This  latter  word  is  not 
here  taken  in  the  Stoic  sense  of  the  eternal  return  of 
things,  a  series  of  cosmic  cycles  in  which  the  same 
phenomena  are  exactly  reproduced.24  It  is  used  to  desig- 
nate a  transmigration  separated  by  intervals,  a  process 
which  is  not  continuous.  In  the  first  kind  of  metempsycho- 
sis there  is,  properly  speaking,  no  rebirth,  for  the  soul 
does  not  leave  the  earth,  but  there  unceasingly  accom- 
plishes its  circular  journey  through  the  living  world.  On 
the  contrary,  according  to  the  second  theory,  it  does  not 
immediately  resume  possession  of  a  body.  It  remains  dis- 
incarnate  for  a  long  period  of  years — for  Virgil  as  for 
Plato  the  number  is  one  thousand — and  thus  leads  a 
double  existence  of  which  its  passages  to  this  world  take 
up  only  the  lesser  part.  It  is  not  even  fatally  constrained 
to  redescend  to  the  earth :  if  it  has  kept  itself  free  from 
all  corporeal  defilement,  it  will  soar  to  heaven  and  dwell 
there  for  ever. 

But  if,  during  his  sojourn  on  the  earth,  man  has  given 
himself  up  to  the  pleasures  of  the  senses,  his  soul  becomes 
attached  to  his  body.  At  first  it  cannot  separate  itself 
from  the  corpse,  around  which  it  circles,  plaintively 
regretting  the  joys  it  has  lost.  It  desires  again  to  enter 

23  Cf.  Bevue  de  philologie,  XLIV,  1921,  p.  232  ss. 
*    24  Above,  Introd.,  p.  13. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  183 

the  flesh  which  was  the  instrument  of  its  voluptuous- 
ness ;  it  seeks  a  dwelling  which  will  allow  it  to  continue 
the  sensual  habits  which  have  become  its  second  nature. 
And  so,  when  the  time  is  accomplished,  it  is  seized  with 
an  irresistible  love  for  the  body  in  which  it  is  to  enclose 
itself  again;  a  fascination,  like  a  magic  charm,  draws 
it  to  this  object  of  its  desires,  which  is  to  cause  its  misery. 
The  fatality  driving  it  to  incarnation  and  suffering  is  not 
here  an  inevitable  law  of  the  universe  but  an  inner  neces- 
sity, a  destiny  which  it  has  made  for  itself.  The  cosmic 
Ananke  has  become  psychic. 

Thus  every  vicious  tendency  contracted  by  the  soul 
during  its  abode  in  this  world  has  for  this  soul  conse- 
quences which  their  long  duration  makes  more  momen- 
tous. If  virtue  enables  it  to  rise  upward  at  each  new  birth 
and  to  acquire,  as  the  ages  revolve,  an  ever  increasing 
perfection,  perversion  of  character  produces  effects  which 
are  calamitous  not  only  in  this  life  but  also  in  several 
other  lives  through  the  centuries.  Moral  laws  are  no  less 
infallible  than  physical  laws.  Right  or  wrong,  every  act 
has  to  be  paid  for  with  harm  or  benefit  in  the  long  chain 
of  incarnations.  By  his  acquired  disposition,  man  deter- 
mines his  future  throughout  a  sequence  of  generations; 
the  evil  he  suffers  is  to  be  imputed  not  to  the  creator  but 
to  himself.  A  bust  of  Plato  found  at  Tivoli  and  now  pre- 
served in  San  Francisco25  has  graven  on  it  the  following 
sentence  of  the  Master  as  to  the  lot  of  immortal  souls : 
' 'The  fault  is  the  chooser's;  God  is  without  fault' ' — 
Alria  eXo/xeVw,  6  #eo?  avairios. 

The  very  fact  of  birth  was  a  pain  for  the  soul,  since 
it  tore  it  from  its  celestial  home  and  plunged  it  into 
a  soiled  and  troubled  world;  consequently  it  was  not 
necessary  for  the  soul's  chastisement  that  it  should 
descend  into  the  body  of  animals.  Indeed,  certain  thinkers 
rejected  this  kind  of  metempsychosis :  a  reasonable  spirit 

25  Museum  of  the  University  of  California;  Kaibel,  Inscr.  Sicil.  et  Ital., 
12,  1196.    The  sentence  is  taken  from  Bepull,  X,  617  C. 


184  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

could  not,  they  held,  dwell  in  a  being  deprived  of  reason. 
Transmigration  occurred  therefore  exclusively  from  man 
to  man  and  from  beast  to  beast.  Such  was  the  opinion  de- 
fended by  Porphyry  and  Jamblichus,  who,  in  order  to 
dispose  of  the  texts  of  Plato  which  were  contrary  to  this 
theory,  upheld  that  he  spoke  figuratively,  and  that  his 
"asses,"  his  "wolves"  and  his  "lions"  signified  persons 
who  resembled  these  beasts  in  ignorance  or  ferocity.26 

It  is  seen  that  this  metempsychosis  was  getting  far 
away  from  that  which  had  its  origin  in  the  primitive  be- 
liefs. The  "cycle  of  generation"  was  no  longer  conceived 
as  a  flux  of  life  circulating  throughout  the  variety  of  the 
animate  beings  peopling  the  earth,  but  as  the  descent  and 
the  ascent  of  a  psychic  essence,  passing  alternately  from 
heaven  to  earth  and  from  earth  to  heaven. 

It  is  to  these  doctrines  that  Virgil  alludes  when  in  the 
Aeneid  he  shows  us,  gathered  in  a  remote  place  of  the 
Elysian  Fields,  the  shades  whom  after  a  thousand  years 
a  god  calls  to  come  in  a  great  troop  to  the  river  Lethe, 
there  to  drink  the  forgetfulness  of  the  past,  whereby 
"they  begin  again  to  wish  to  return  to  the  body."27 


But  the  poet  also  gives  us  precious  hints  as  to  the  lot 
reserved  for  the  soul  in  the  interval  between  its  incarna- 
tions. For  palingenesis,  unlike  the  doctrine  of  perpetual 
reincorporation,  left  a  place  for  chastisement  in  the  infer- 
nal regions.  These  were  however  situated,  as  we  have 
seen,  for  the  Pythagoreans  and  Posidonius,  whom  Virgil 
interpreted,  not  on  earth  but  in  the  air.  It  was  there  that 
the  soul  had  to  purify  itself  from  the  stains  acquired  while 

26  Porph.,  De  regressu  anim.,  f r.  11,  Bidez=Aug.,  Civ.  Dei,  X,  30 ;  Jam- 
blich.  ap.  Nemes.,  Be  nat.  horn.,  2;  cf.  Zeller,  Philos.  Gr.,  V*,  p.  713. 

27  "Has  omnes,  ubi  mille  rotam  volvere  per  annos, 

Lethaeum  ad  fluvium  deus  evocat  agmine  magno, 
Scilicet  immemores  super  ut  convexa  revisant, 
Rursus  et  incipiant  in  corpore  velle  reverti. " 

Aen.,  VI,  749-753. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  185 


it  was  in  touch  with  the  flesh.  This  pollution,  we  know,28 
was  conceived  in  a  very  material  form.  The  texts  speak 
of  a  thickening  of  the  subtle  substance  of  which  the  soul 
is  formed,  of  concretions  encrusting  it,  of  indelible  marks 
with  which  the  vices  stain  it.  When  the  soul  left  the 
corpse,  of  which  it  kept  the  form,  it  first,  as  we  have  seen, 
floated  in  the  ambient  air.  When  it  was  not  weighed  down 
by  the  matter  with  which  it  had  become  impregnated,  the 
breath  of  the  atmosphere  raised  it  gently  and,  gradually 
warming  it,  bore  it  to  the  heavens,  and  this  is  why  the 
Winds  are  often  represented  on  tombstones.29  But  these 
Winds,  fierce  divinities,  could  also  cause  the  soul  to  expiate 
its  faults  bitterly.  If  it  had  lost  its  purity  and  lightness, 
the  whirlwinds  drew  it  into  their  vortex,  the  storms 
rolled  and  buffeted  it,  thus  violently  tearing  away  the 
crust  which  had  become  attached  to  it.  The  souls  were 
thus  freed  from  defilements  contracted  during  life  just  as 
linen  hung  in  the  air  is  bleached  and  loses  all  odour. 

Their  passage  through  the  air  did  not  complete  their 
purification.  In  the  East  the  idea  was  old  that  above  the 
firmament  was  found  the  great  reservoir  of  the  waters 
which  fell  to  the  ground  as  rain.  Beyond,  a  burning  zone 
must  extend,  where  the  heavenly  bodies  were  lit,  and  a 
river  of  fire,  identified  with  the  Pyriphlegethon  of  the 
Greeks,  was  imagined.  These  old  mythological  ideas  were 
brought  into  relation  with  Stoic  physics :  above  the  region 
of  the  winds  stretched  that  of  the  clouds,  in  which  the  rain, 
the  snow  and  the  hail  were  formed,  and  higher  still  there 
was  the  burning  air,  in  which  the  lightning  flashed  and 
which  touched  the  starry  spheres.  The  souls  must  blaze  a 
path  through  these  obstacles.  After  being  tossed  and 
blown  about  by  the  winds,  they  were  drenched  by  rain  and 
plunged  into  the  gulf  of  the  upper  waters.  They  reached 
at  last  the  fires  of  heaven,  of  which  the  heat  scorched 
them.  Not  till  they  had  undergone  this  threefold  trial, 

28  See  above,  Lecture  VI,  p.  162,  and  Introd.,  p.  29. 

29  Mudes  syriennes,  p.  70. 


186  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

in  the  course  of  which  they  had  passed  through  countless 
years  of  expiation,  did  they  at  length  find  peace  in  the 
serenity  of  the  luminous  ether.30 

Virgil,31  in  the  passage  already  quoted,  alludes  to  this 
doctrine  when,  in  speaking  of  the  souls,  he  says : 

"  .  .  .  Aliae  panduntur  inanes 
Suspensae  ad  ventos,  aliis  sub  gurgite  vasto 
Inf ectum  eluitur  scelus,  aut  exuritur  igni. ' ' 

"Some  are  exposed,  hung  lightly  to  the  winds;  as  to 
others,  the  crime  infecting  them  is  washed  away  in  a  deep 
gulf  or  burnt  by  fire. ' ' 

In  an  eschatological  myth,  which  Plutarch32  borrows 
from  Demetrius  of  Tarsus,  he  shows  us  guilty  souls  who 
seek  to  reach  the  moon  and  who  do  not  arrive  thither, 
but  are  hunted  and  buffeted  as  by  swelling  billows,  and 
others  who  have  reached  the  goal,  but  are  rejected  and 
plunged  from  on  high  into  the  abyss.  Similarly,  Hermes 
Trismegistus  depicts  souls  flung  from  the  height  of 
heaven  into  the  depths  of  the  atmosphere  and  delivered 
to  the  storms  and  whirlwinds  of  warring  air,  water  and 
fire.  Their  eternal  punishment  is  to  be  tossed  and  car- 
ried in  different  directions  by  the  cosmic  waves  which 
roll  unceasingly  between  earth  and  heaven.33 

The  passage  of  souls  through  the  elements  is  repre- 
sented symbolically  on  a  funeral  monument  almost 
contemporary  with  the  verses  of  Virgil,  which  was  dis- 
covered near  Scarbantia  in  Pannonia.34  Above  the  por- 
traits of  the  deceased,  there  appear  first  in  the  spandrels 
of  this  cippus  two  busts  of  the  winds  facing  each  other. 
Higher  up,  on  the  architrave,  are  two  Tritons,  and  on 
each  side  of  a  trident  two  dolphins,  which  evidently  repre- 
sent the  idea  of  the  watery  element.  Finally,  at  the  top 

30  See  Lecture  VI,  p.  161 ;  cf.  below,  Lecture  VIII,  p.  196. 
3i  Virg.,  Aen.,  VI,  740  ss. 

32  Plut.,  Be  facie  lunae,  p.  943  B. 

33  Ps.  Apul.,  Asclep.,  28. 

34  Jahresh.  Institut  Wien,  XII,  1910,  p.  213. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  187 

of  the  stone,  in  the  pediment,  we  see  two  lions.  The  lion, 
for  physical  and  astrological  reasons,  was  considered  as 
the  symbol  of  fire,  the  igneous  principle. 

"We  have  seen35  that  for  the  doctrine  which  placed  the 
limit  of  the  dwelling  of  the  gods  and  the  elect  in  the  zone 
of  the  moon,  another  was  substituted  according  to  which 
the  souls,  in  order  to  regain  the  purity  of  their  original 
nature,  had  to  traverse  the  spheres  of  the  planets  to  reach 
the  heaven  of  fixed  stars.  The  trials  of  purgatory  had  to 
be  prolonged  up  to  the  entry  into  the  dwelling  of  the 
blessed.  The  idea  was,  therefore,  conceived  of  attributing 
each  of  the  planets  to  one  of  the  elements.  The  moon  was 
the  ethereal  earth,  Mercury  the  water,  Venus  the  air,  the 
sun  the  fire :  and  inversely,  Mars  was  the  fire,  Jupiter  the 
air,  Saturn  the  water,  and  the  sphere  of  the  stars  the 
celestial  earth,  in  which  lay  the  Elysian  Fields.  Thus  the 
soul,  in  order  to  be  saved,  had  to  be  reborn  three  times  in 
virtue  of  a  triple  passage  through  the  four  elements.36 

This  last  doctrine,  which  is  connected  with  astrological 
speculations,  seems  to  have  had  only  a  limited  vogue  and 
to  have  been  of  ephemeral  duration.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  idea  of  a  purgatory  situated  in  the  atmosphere  be- 
tween our  earth  and  the  moon,  a  place  in  which  souls  were 
purified  not  only  by  fire  but  also  by  air  and  water,  was 
long  to  survive  the  fall  of  paganism  and  to  be  propa- 
gated through  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  West  as  in  the  East. 
For  Dante,  purgatory  still  occupied  a  fiery  zone  stretched 
between  the  terrestrial  and  the  celestial  circles. 


Was  the  soul  which,  after  a  long  expiation,  had  reached 
the  Elysian  Fields  and  the  sphere  of  the  stars,  always  to 
descend  thence,  seized  with  a  blind  love  for  the  body,  and 
to  pass  again  through  the  trials  of  another  earthly  life? 
No,  the   ancient   Orphics    already  flattered   themselves 

35  See  above,  Lecture  III,  p.  107. 

seMacrob.,  Comm.  Somn  Scip.,  I,  11,  8;  Proclus,  In  Tim.,  II,  48,  15  ss., 
Diehl. 


188  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

that  by  their  cathartic  rites  they  obtained  for  the  soul  an 
escape  from  the  fatal  cycle  of  generation  and  regaining 
of  heaven  for  ever.  The  Pythagoreans  inherited  this  doc- 
trine, which  they  kept  nntil  the  Roman  period.  In  spite  of 
the  contrary  opinion  of  certain  thinkers,  pagan  philoso- 
phers and  priests  generally  taught  that  after  pilgrim- 
ages, more  or  less  long,  after  a  succession  of  deaths  and 
rebirths,  the  purified  spirits  returned  to  dwell  for  ever  in 
their  celestial  country.  It  was  to  this  goal  that  the  mys- 
teries promised  to  lead  their  initiate;  this  was  the  end 
which  the  sages  flattered  themselves  that  they  attained 
by  their  virtue. 

It  will  be  understood  that  such  a  hope,  combined  with 
the  suppression  of  eternal  damnation  in  Hades,  led  neces- 
sarily to  the  doctrine  of  the  eventual  salvation  of  all 
souls.  We  know  this  system  especially  through  Origen, 
but  he  merely  reproduced  a  theory  to  which  the  evolution 
of  pagan  ideas  had  led. 

We  have  seen  that  metempsychosis  helped  the  philos- 
ophers to  shake,  if  not  to  ruin,  the  belief  in  infernal  pun- 
ishment. But  this  belief  again  had  power  towards  the  end 
of  antiquity,  when  the  dualist  sects  which  were  the  out- 
come of  Persian  Mazdeism  were  propagated  and  when 
Plato  became  the  supreme  authority  in  philosophy.  We 
touched  on  this  point,  in  another  lecture,37  when  we 
showed  how  the  idea  of  a  demons'  prison  in  the  bosom  of 
the  earth  triumphed. 

Thus,  when  the  Roman  world  was  in  its  decline,  men 
came  back  to  the  old  threefold  distinction  of  the  Orphics 
and  the  Pythagoreans.  The  very  guilty,  who  cannot  be 
corrected,  are  hurled  into  Tartarus,  where  they  suffer  for 
ever  the  punishment  of  their  incurable  wickedness.  Souls 
less  corrupt  are  subjected  to  purification,  either  by  pass- 
ing through  the  elements  or  by  undergoing  successive 
reincarnations,  and  thus  they  regain  their  original  nature 
before    they    are    readmitted    to    their    first    dwelling. 

37  Lecture  II,  p.  87  ss. 


THE  SUFFERINGS  OF  HELL  189 

Finally,  the  most  perfect  souls,  those  of  the  wise  who 
have  freed  themselves  from  the  domination  of  the  body 
and  have  not  let  themselves  be  contaminated  by  matter, 
and  those  of  the  pious  faithful,  to  whom  religious  lustra- 
tions have  given  back  their  purity  or  whom  initiations  to 
the  mysteries  have  made  equal  to  the  gods,  at  once  rise 
again  to  the  celestial  spheres. 

In  the  next  lecture  we  shall  speak  of  the  rewards 
reserved  for  them  in  the  dwelling  of  the  blessed. 


VIII 
THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED 

WE  have  seen  how  the  evolution  of  religions  faith 
caused  the  dwelling-place  of  the  dead  to  move 
from  the  tomb  to  the  nether  world  and  from  the 
nether  world  to  the  heavens.  When  the  abode  of  souls  was 
changed,  all  the  ideas  attached  to  the  future  life  had  to  be 
transposed.  In  this  lecture  we  shall  endeavour  to  make 
clear  how  the  opinions  which  were  held  as  to  the  felicity 
of  the  blessed  were  thus  transformed.  We  shall  take  up 
again  matter  which  we  have  already  touched  upon  in 
another  connection  and  try  to  show  the  successive  changes 
undergone  by  three  manners  of  conceiving  happiness  in 
after  life :  the  repose  of  the  dead,  the  repast  of  the  dead, 
and  the  sight  of  God. 

The  most  ancient  and  originally  the  simplest  of  these 
conceptions  was  that  of  the  repose  of  the  dead.  We  know1 
that  the  dead  who  had  not  been  buried  in  accordance  with 
the  rites  were  believed  to  find  no  rest  in  the  tomb.  A 
corpse  had  to  be  committed  to  the  earth  with  traditional 
ceremonies  in  order  that  the  spirit  which  animated  it 
might  have  quiet.  If  this  spirit  were  not  subsequently 
nourished  by  offerings  and  sacrifices,  it  left  its  burial 
place  and  roamed  the  earth's  surface  like  an  animal 
driven  by  hunger.  The  shades  inhabiting  the  tombs  could 
also  be  evoked  by  necromancers  and  such  disturbance 
broke  in  upon  their  rest  most  unpleasantly. 

These  archaic  ideas  were  so  deeply  implanted  in  the 
popular  mind  that  other  beliefs  never  expelled  them, 
but  supervened  and  existed  side  by  side  with  them  with- 
out causing  their  disappearance. 

i  See  Lecture  I,  p.  64  ss. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  191 

On  tombs  of  the  imperial  period  formulas  like  the  fol- 
lowing are  often  read:  "Hie  requiescit,"  "Here  rests, " 
"Quieti  aeternae,"  "For  eternal  rest" — inscriptions 
which  could  be  interpreted  figuratively ;  but  other  wishes 
can  only  be  taken  to  have  a  material  sense,  such  as: 
"Ossa  quiescant,"  "May  his  bones  rest,"  and  "Molliter 
ossa  cubent,"  "May  the  bones  lie  softly."  Poetry  has 
preserved  a  number  of  similar  phrases.  Tibullus  ex- 
presses the  following  wish  for  a  loved  woman :  "May  thy 
slender  form  rest  well  beneath  the  soft  earth."2 

The  rest  which  the  exact  accomplishment  of  the  rites 
gave  to  the  dead  was  not  physical  only  but  moral  also. 
The  dead  were  securi — the  word  is  properly  applied  to 
them — that  is,  they  were  exempt  from  care.  Doubtless  the 
care  from  which  they  were  delivered  by  the  cult  of  the 
grave,  was  first  that  of  suffering  from  hunger  and  thirst,3 
but  the  "eternal  security"  (securitas  aeternaY  they 
enjoyed  was  also  the  absence  of  all  the  fears  and  anxieties 
which  haunt  humanity. 

When  philosophy  claimed  to  free  souls  from  the  super- 
stitions of  the  past,  it  did  not  destroy  the  old  conception 
of  rest  in  the  tomb  but  cleansed  it  from  all  material  alloy. 
If  it  be  doubtful  whether  anything  of  man  survives,  it  is 
at  least  certain  that  death  marks  the  abolition  of  the 
pains  of  this  world  and  the  end  of  its  troubles.  Mors 
laborum  et  miseriarum  quies,  is  Cicero's  definition.5 
Death  restores  us  to  that  state  of  tranquillity  in  which  we 
were  before  our  birth.6  The  "eternal  home"  which  shel- 
ters the  remains  of  man  is  the  silent  temple  in  which  he 
no  longer  has  anything  to  fear  from  nature  or  from  his 
fellows. 

The  Epicureans  who  made  ataraxia  their  ideal  of  life, 
the  Stoics  who   found  theirs  in  impassivity   (a7ra#eia), 

2  Tibullus,  II,  6,  30 :  "  Sic  bene  sub  tenera  parva  quiescat  humo. ' ' 

3  Tertull.,  Be  testimonio  animae,  4. 

*  Securitati  aeternae;  cf.  Dessau,  Inscr.  seh,  8025  ss.,  8149. 
5Cic,  Catil.,  IV,  7;  cf.  Tusc.,  I,  11,  25;  49,  118. 
6  Sen.,  Dial,  VI,  19,  5. 


192  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

could  see  in  the  anaesthesia  of  death  the  supreme  realisa- 
tion of  such  absence  of  emotion  and  passion.  The  corpse 
lies  as  softly  on  its  last  bed  as  a  man  plunged  in  a  deep 
and  quiet  sleep.  The  burial  place  is  indeed  often  conse- 
crated to  Somno  aeterno.7  This  idea  is  expressed  in  a 
thousand  forms  in  literature  and  in  epitaphs.  A  poor 
grammarian  of  Como,  who  doubtless  had  had  little  reason 
to  congratulate  himself  on  life,  caused  two  lines  of  verse 
to  be  engraved  on  his  tomb:*  "I  fled  the  miseries  of  sick- 
ness and  the  great  ills  of  life ;  I  am  now  delivered  from  all 
its  pains  and  enjoy  a  peaceful  calm.,,  On  an  African 
grave  there  are  the  following  words:  "After  bearing  a 
heavy  burden  and  after  manifold  toils,  he  speaks  no 
more,  content  with  the  silent  dwelling  in  which  he  rests."9 
We  read  elsewhere,  "Life  was  a  pain,  death  prepared  me 
rest."10  The  sentiment  expressed  by  these  inscriptions 
and  many  more  like  them  is  no  mere  reflection  of  the 
teaching  of  philosophers  who  denied  the  future  life :  it  is 
profoundly  human.  The  melodious  but  melancholy  apos- 
trophe of  Leconte  de  Lisle  is  well  known : 

"Et  toi,  divine  mort,  ou  tout  rentre  et  s 'efface, 
Accueille  tes  enf ants  dans  ton  sein  etoile ; 
AfTranchis  nous  du  temps,  du  nombre  et  de  l'espace 
Et  rends  nous  le  repos  que  la  vie  a  trouble." 

' '  0  Death  divine,  at  whose  recall, 
Returneth  all 

To  fade  in  thy  embrace, 
Gather  thy  children  to  thy  bosom  starred, 

7  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  8024  and  note;  cf.  Cic,  Tusc,  I,  41,  97;  and  Introd., 
p.  10. 

s  Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1274: 

"Morborum  vitia  et  vitae  mala  maxima  fugi. 
Nunc  careo  poenis,  pace  f ruor  placida. ' ' 
9  Bucheler,  Hid.,  573 : 

' '  Qui  post  tantum  onus,  multos  crebrosque  labores 
Nunc  silet  et  tacito  contentus  sede  quiescit. " 
io  Bucheler,  Hid.,  507:  ''Poena  fuit  vita,  requies  mihi  morte  parata  est.,, 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  193 


Free  us  from  time,  from  number  and  from  space, 
And  give  us  back  the  rest  that  life  has  marred."11 

In  the  midst  of  all  the  tribulation  of  our  tormented 
existence,  to  how  many  minds,  even  those  which  have  the 
strongest  religious  conviction,  have  not  the  immobility 
and  insensibility  of  those  who  are  no  more  sometimes 
seemed  like  a  deliverance  1  In  antiquity  also,  this  aspira- 
tion towards  the  moment  when  man  will  obtain  remission 
of  all  his  travail  does  not  necessarily  imply  the  belief 
that  there  is  no  hope  beyond  the  cold  sleep  of  the  grave. 
This  yearning  mingles  with  faith  in  immortality  and  is 
transformed  with  it. 

When  it  was  believed  that  the  dead  went  down  into  the 
depths  of  the  earth  where  lay  the  infernal  kingdom, 
another  meaning  was  given  to  their  rest.  The  funeral 
eulogy  of  a  noble  woman  who  towards  the  end  of  the 
Eepublican  period  saved  the  life  of  her  husband,  who  had 
been  proscribed,  ends  with  the  naive  words :  "I  pray  that 
the  gods  thy  Manes  may  grant  thee  rest  and  thus  protect 
thee."12  The  shades  of  the  kinsmen  of  the  dead  must 
receive  their  souls  in  the  subterranean  world13  and  thus 
ensure  their  welfare.  The  road  which  must  be  travelled 
before  the  abode  of  the  elect  was  reached  was  long  and 
beset  with  dangers.  The  Book  of  the  Dead  in  Egypt,  the 
Orphic  tablets  in  Greece,  were  guides  to  the  Beyond  which 
taught  the  dead  not  to  stray  from  the  right  path  and  to 
avoid  the  various  dangers  threatening  them.14  Many  of 
them,  the  impious  who  had  to  expiate  their  misdeeds  and 
the  unfortunate  to  whom  funeral  duties  had  not  been 
rendered,  wandered  wretchedly  on  the  banks  of  the  Styx, 
vainly  longing  to  enter  the  "peaceful  abode"  of  the  Ely- 
sian  Fields.15  There,  lying  in  the  cool  shade,  the  blessed 

11  Transl.  by  J.  C.  Anderson  (in  my  Astrology  and  Religion,  p.  171). 

12  Dessau,  Inscr.  sel.,  8393,  79 :  "  Te  di  Manes  tui  ut  quietam  patiantur 
atque  ita  tueantur  opto. " 

13  See  above,  Lecture  I,  p.  68;  II,  p.  86,  n.  39;  V,  p.  134. 

14  See  above,  Lecture  VI,  p.  143. 

i5Virg.,  Aen.,  VI,  705:  "Domos  placidas. n 


194  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

enjoyed  a  felicity  exempt  from  all  care.  Serene  quiet  in  a 
sweet  idleness  cheered  by  joyous  relaxation  and  wise  con- 
versation—such was  the  ideal  which  some  mysteries16 
opposed  to  the  weary  agitations  of  earthly  life  and  to  the 
long  sufferings  of  the  sinful  and  vagabond  soul.  For  the 
adepts  of  these  doctrines  the  secura  quies  applied  to  the 
repose  of  the  nether  world,  and  this  conception  of  beati- 
tude beyond  the  grave  is  found  to  persist  until  the  end 
of  paganism.17 

But  we  have  seen  that  another  doctrine  triumphed  in 
the  Roman  period,  the  doctrine  that  souls  rise  to  the  skies 
to  live  there  eternally  among  the  stars.  In  this  great 
metamorphosis  of  eschatological  beliefs  what  became  of 
the  idea  of  the  repose  of  the  dead!  The  question  deserves 
to  be  more  closely  investigated,  for  the  transformation 
had  lasting  consequences  of  which  the  ultimate  effects  can 
be  felt  even  today. 

The  Pythagoreans  were,  as  we  have  seen,18  the  first  to 
promulgate  the  doctrine  of  celestial  immortality  in 
Greece  and  Italy.  One  of  the  allegories  familiar  to  the 
teaching  of  the  sect  connected  human  destiny  with  the 
old  myth  of  Hercules  at  the  crossroads.  The  Greek  letter 
Y,  of  which  the  stem  divides  midway  into  two,  was  in  the 
school  the  symbol  of  this  comparison — we  have  already 
alluded  to  it  elsewhere.19  When  man  reaches  the  age  of 
reason  two  paths  are  open  to  him.  One  is  smooth  and  easy 
but  ends  in  an  abyss:  this  is  the  way  of  pleasure.  The 
other  is  at  first  rough  and  jagged — it  is  the  hard  road  of 
virtue — but  he  who  climbs  to  the  summit  of  its  slope  can 
there  rest  deliciously  from  his  weariness.  Funeral  reliefs 
represent  this  contrast  naively :  at  the  bottom  of  the  stele 
the  dead  man  is  often  seen  accomplishing  the  labours  of 
his  career;  at  the  top  of  the  stone  he  is  shown  stretched 
at  his  ease  on  a  couch. 

16  See  Introd.,  p.  34  ss. 

17  Comptes  rendus  Acad.  Inscr.,  1912,  p.  151  ss. ;  cf.  Biicheler,  Carm. 
epigr.,  513. 

is  Lecture  III,  p.  95.  i»  Lecture  VI,  p.  150. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  195 

The  meaning  of  the  allegory  is  immediately  apparent : 
the  quieta  sedes  in  which  deserving  souls  are  received, 
has  become  the  sky.  How  was  this  idea  developed? 

Homer20  had  already  described  Olympus  as  "the  im- 
movable seat  of  the  gods  which  is  neither  shaken  by  the 
winds,  nor  wet  by  the  rains,  nor  touched  by  the  snow,  but 
is  bright  with  a  cloudless  light.' '  The  Epicureans  applied 
these  lines  of  the  poet  to  the  serene  dwelling  where  noth- 
ing occurred  to  modify  the  perpetual  peace  enjoyed  by 
the  gods.21  And  the  founder  of  Stoicism  had  already 
taught  that  the  pious  souls,  separated  from  the  guilty, 
inhabited  "tranquil  and  delectable' '  regions.22  Both 
called  this  dwelling  of  the  gods  or  the  elect  by  the  same 
name — sedes  quietae. 

We  must  here  remember  the  distinction,  established 
by  the  philosophers  and  often  repeated,  between  the  sub- 
lunary circle  and  the  celestial  spheres.23  Above,  the  world 
of  the  eternal  gods;  below,  the  world  of  generation  and 
corruption.  There  the  pure  ether  always  kept  the  same 
serenity;  here  the  struggle  of  the  elements  called  forth 
unceasing  agitation  and  transformation.  On  one  side 
reigned  peace  and  harmony,  on  the  other  war  and  discord. 
The  zone  of  the  moon  was  the  boundary  between  the  two 
contrasted  parts  of  the  world,  and  "the  limit  between 
life  and  death."24  It  was  when  they  had  crossed  it,  that 
the  souls  entered  the  quietae  sedes  of  the  Blessed. 

The  very  ancient  idea  of  a  fearful  journey  which  the 
dead  had  to  make  in  order  to  reach  Pluto 's  subterranean 
kingdom  was  transferred  to  the  space  lying  between  the 
earth  and  the  moon,  for  this  was  the  region  of  the  uni- 
verse to  which  the  name  of  nether  world  (Inferi)25  was 

20  Odyssey,  VI,  42  ss. 

21  Lucretius,  III,  18  ss. 

22Zeno,  fr.  147  (von  Arnim,  Fragm.  Stoicorum,  I,  p.  40)  :  "Zeno  docuit 
sedes  piorum  ab  impiis  esse  discretas  et  illos  quidem  quietas  ac  delectabiles 
habitare  regiones. " 

23  See  Introd.,  p.  25 ;  Lecture  III,  p.  96. 

24Macrob.,  Somn.  Scip.,  I,  11,  6:  "Vitae  mortisque  connnium.,, 

25  See  above,  Lecture  II,  p.  81  s. 


196  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

henceforth  applied.  As  we  have  seen  in  the  previous  lec- 
ture,26 when  the  soul,  escaping  from  the  body,  was  laden 
with  material  dross,  it  was  tossed  about  for  many  cen- 
turies before  it  could  again  win  to  the  ether.  Shaken  by 
the  winds,  swept  to  and  fro  by  the  opposing  elements  of 
air,  water  and  fire,  it  had  to  endure  a  long  torture  before 
it  was  cleansed  of  the  sin  which  weighed  it  down.  When  at 
length  it  was  freed  of  every  fleshly  taint,  it  escaped  from 
inward  trouble  also,  from  the  pains  and  the  passions 
provoked  by  its  union  with  the  body.  "Then,"  says 
Seneca,  "it  tends  to  return  to  the  place  whence  it  has 
been  sent  down;  there  eternal  quiet  awaits  it  when  it 
passes  from  the  confused  and  gross  to  the  clear  and 
pure."27  In  the  same  way  certain  Neo-Platonists  taught 
that  souls  which  had  lived  well,  rose  to  the  celestial 
heights  and  rested  there  amid  the  stars.  Even  in  this  life 
the  ecstasy,  which  gave  them  anticipated  enjoyment  of 
the  future  bliss,  is  described  by  them  as  a  transport  in 
which  reason  attains  to  absolute  stability  or  equipoise, 
escapes  from  all  movement  and  rests  in  the  Supreme 
Being.28  Peace  in  the  celestial  light :  such  is  the  highest 
form  which  the  repose  of  the  dead  assumed  in  paganism.29 
The  various  ideas  which  we  have  just  analysed — those 
of  the  repose  in  the  grave,  the  repose  in  the  infernal 
regions  and  the  repose  in  heaven — followed  parallel 
courses  during  the  centuries  and  in  part  passed  from 
antiquity  to  the  Middle  Ages.  But  the  distinction  between 
them  is  not  always  clear.  Even  in  paganism  they  were 
intermingled  and  in  the  course  of  time  they  were  grad- 
ually confused.  In  no  class  of  beliefs  is  the  force  of  tradi- 

26  See  Lecture  VII,  p.  185  s. 

27  Sen.,  Consol.  Marc,  24,  5:  "(Animus)  nititur  illo  unde  demissus  est; 
ibi  ilium  aeterna  requies  manet  e  confusis  crassisque  pura  et  liquida  visen- 
tem. ' » 

28  Plotin.,  IX,  8,  9,  p.  768  A;  IX,  8,  11,  p.  770  C. 

29  Cf.  Aug.,  Serm.,  CCLX  (P.L.  XXXVIII,  1132,  38)  :  "Dixerunt  Plato- 
nici  .  .  .  animas,  ire  ad  superna  caelorum  et  requiescere  ibi  in  stellis  et 
luminibus  istis  conspicuis. ' ' 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  197 

tion  greater  than  in  those  which  centre  in  death,  and  the 
Christian  peoples  clung  tenaciously  to  articles  of  faith 
which  Jews  and  pagans  had  shared  before  them. 

We  have  seen30  that  the  masses  did  not  easily  give  up 
their  belief  that  the  dead  continued,  in  or  about  the 
tomb,  a  vegetating  and  uncertain  life.  Extreme  impor- 
tance was  still  attached  to  burial  because  the  more  or 
less  unconscious  conviction  persisted  that  the  soul's  rest 
depended  on  that  of  the  body.  The  dread  of  ghosts  was 
still  the  inspiration  for  some  ceremonies  performed  over 
the  remains  of  the  dead.  Nay,  a  new  apprehension  was 
added  to  this,  namely,  the  fear  lest  the  dead  whose  bodies 
were  torn  from  the  tomb  should  have  no  part  in  the 
resurrection  of  the  flesh.31  The  formula,  "Hie  requiescit," 
"Here  rests — ,"  was  transferred  from  pagan  to  Chris- 
tian epigraphy,  and  the  rest  men  wished  to  the  departed 
was  first  the  rest  of  the  corpse,  which  was  peacefully  to 
await  the  Day  of  Judgment  in  its  last  dwelling. 

These  were  doubtless  vulgar  prejudices  rather  than 
dogmas  recognised  by  orthodoxy,  yet  they  did  not  remain 
without  influence  on  the  teaching  of  the  doctors  of  the 
Church.  For  instance,  Saint  Ambrose32  enlarges  on  the 
thought,  probably  borrowed  from  some  philosopher,  that 
death  is  good  because  in  it  the  body,  source  of  our  uneasi- 
ness, our  troubles  and  our  vices,  rests,  calmed  for  ever, 
while  the  virtuous  soul  rises  to  heaven.  After  the  travail 
of  existence  the  dead  rest  as  man  rests  on  the  Sabbath 
day,  and  this  was,  it  was  explained,  the  reason  why  the 
seventh  day  was  the  day  of  the  commemoration  of  the 
departed. 

The  idea  of  rest  in  the  infernal  regions  has  left  no  deep 
traces  on  the  Christian  faith,  for  which  the  subterranean 
world  became  the  abode  of  the  wicked.  It  was,  however, 
somewhere  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  that  the  dwelling 
of  the  righteous  who  lived  before  the  Redemption  was 

30  Lecture  I,  p.  45  ss. 

si  Ibid.,  p.  69. 

32  St.  Ambrose,  Be  bono  mortis,  9;  cf.  Kaibel,  Inscr.  Sic.  It.,  2117. 


198  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

commonly  placed,  sometimes  also  that  of  children  who 
died  unbaptised.  They  found  there  according  to  the  Pela- 
gians a  " place  of  repose  and  salvation"  outside  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.33 

But  in  Roman  times  the  idea  of  peace  in  the  celestial 
light  was  dominant  among  the  Jews  and  Christians  as 
among  the  pagans.  Thus  the  Book  of  Enoch  shows  us  the 
prophet  carried  off  in  a  whirlwind  to  the  heights  whence 
he  perceived  "the  beds  where  the  just  rest"  amid  the 
saints.34  We  can  here  point  out  exactly  the  most  important 
of  the  literary  intermediaries  through  whom  this  concep- 
tion was  transmitted  from  paganism  to  Judaism  and 
from  Judaism  to  Christianity.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
first  century  A.  D.,  amid  the  desolation  which  followed 
on  the  destruction  of  the  Temple,  a  pious  Jew,  somewhere 
in  the  East,  composed  and  ascribed  to  the  venerable 
authorship  of  Esdras  an  apocalypse  which  enjoyed  sin- 
gular popularity  until  the  time  of  its  rejection  by  the 
Church  as  apocryphal.  The  visionary  who  set  it  down 
combines  a  number  of  pagan  reminiscences  with  biblical 
ideas.  He  promises  eternal  felicity  to  the  just,  and  asks 
himself  what  will  be  the  lot  of  souls  between  the  time  of 
their  death  and  the  end  of  the  world.  Will  they  be  at  rest 
or  will  they  be  tortured  ?  And  the  angel  who  inspires  him 
answers  that  when  the  vital  breath  has  left  the  body  to  go 
again  to  adore  the  glory  of  the  Most  High,  the  soul  which 
has  violated  the  divine  law  will  not  enter  the  celestial 
dwellings  but  will  "wander  amidst  torments,  for  ever 
suffering  and  saddened  on  seven  paths."  But  the  soul 
which  has  walked  in  the  way  of  God  "will  rest  in  seven 
orders  of  rewards."35  The  sixth  of  these  is  the  order  in 
which  its  face  begins  to  shine  like  the  sun  and  in  which  it 
becomes  incorruptible,  like  the  stars ;  the  seventh  is  that 
in  which  it  wins  to  the  sight  of  God. 

33  Aug.,  De  anima,  II,  12. 

34  Boole  of  Enoch,  39. 

ss  IV  Esdr.,  VII,  91:   " Eequiescent  per  septem  ordines";   cf.  VII,  95 

(p.  131  ss.,  Violet). 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  199 

These  are  conceptions  and  even  expressions  which  be- 
long to  astral  immortality,  and  the  Jewish  anthor,  like  the 
pagans  before  him,  everywhere  contrasts  the  state  of 
agitation  filled  with  anguish  reserved  for  the  guilty  with 
the  blessed  tranquillity  which  is  the  reward  of  a  pious 
life.36  The  description  of  the  celestial  dwelling  which  Saint 
Ambrose  borrowed  from  the  pseudo-Esdras  is  singularly 
like  that  given  by  the  philosophers  of  the  earlier  period : 
a  place  in  which  there  is  no  cloud,  no  thunder,  no  light- 
ning, no  violence  of  winds,  neither  darkness  nor  sunset, 
neither  summer  nor  winter  to  vary  the  seasons,  where  no 
cold  is  met  with,  nor  hail,  nor  rain.  But  the  Christian 
doctor,  like  the  Jewish  visionary,  adds  a  new  feature: 
there  will  be  no  more  sun  nor  moon  nor  stars ;  the  light  of 
God  will  shine  alone.87 

The  idea  of  repose  in  the  eternal  light  was,  thanks  to 
the  apocalypse  of  the  supposed  Esdras,  to  become  one  of 
those  most  frequently  expressed  by  epitaphs  and  ritual. 
It  was  from  this  apocryphal  work  that  the  Roman  liturgy 
borrowed  the  form  of  a  prayer  introduced  into  the  office 
of  the  dead  at  least  as  early  as  the  seventh  century  and 
still  sung  in  the  funeral  service — Requiem  aeternam  dona 
eis  Domine  et  lux  perpetua  luceat  eis.  "Lord,  give  them 
eternal  rest  and  may  perpetual  light  shine  upon  them." 


The  idea  of  the  repast  of  the  dead  evolved,  like  that  of 
their  repose,  as  the  conception  of  life  beyond  the  tomb 
was  gradually  transformed,  and  it  finally  assumed  a  far 
higher  significance  than  that  originally  attributed  to  it. 

According  to  a  belief  found  everywhere,  the  dead,  as 
we  know,38  needed  nourishment  if  they  were  not  to  suffer 
from  hunger.  Hence  the  obligation  to  make  libations  and 
sacrifices  on  the  tomb  and  to  deposit  food  and  drink  there. 

36  IV  Esdr.,  VII,  36,  38  (p.  146,  Violet). 

3T  Ambrose,  Be  bono  mortis,  12,  $  53  (P.L.,  XIV,  154)  ;  of.  IV  Esdr.,  VII, 
39. 

38  See  Lecture  I,  p.  50. 


200  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

The  neglect  of  these  sacred  duties  entailed  consequences 
fearful  to  him  who  failed  to  fulfil  them,  just  as  their  exact 
observance  ensured  him  the  good  will  of  the  spirits  of  the 
dead. 

The  custom  of  holding  banquets  which  united  the  mem- 
bers of  a  family  beside  a  grave  at  a  funeral  or  on  certain 
consecrated  days,  was  connected  with  this  belief.  This 
custom  was  no  mere  rendering  of  an  honour  to  one  who 
had  gone,  no  unmixed  manifestation  of  piety  or  affec- 
tion. The  motive  for  these  ceremonies  was  much  more 
concrete.  As  we  have  stated  elsewhere,39  men  were  per- 
suaded that  the  spirit  of  him  who  lay  beneath  the  ground 
was  present  at  the  meal,  took  its  place  beside  its  kin  and 
rejoiced  with  them.  Therefore  its  share  was  set  aside  for 
it,  and  by  consecrated  formulas  it  was  invited  to  drink 
and  eat.  Moreover  the  guests  themselves  ate  copiously 
and  drank  deeply,  convinced  that  the  noisy  conviviality  of 
the  feast  was  a  source  of  joy  and  refreshment  to  the  shade 
in  the  gloom  of  its  sepulchral  existence.  Sometimes  the 
dinner  took  place  in  a  room  within  the  tomb,  specially  set 
aside  for  such  meetings,  sometimes  in  one  of  the  gardens 
which  men  delighted  to  make  around  the  "eternal  house' ' 
of  the  dead40  and  to  which  inscriptions  sometimes  give  the 
name  of  " paradise' '  (irapdSeLcros) .41 

These  are  customs  and  ideas  which  are  found  every- 
where from  the  time  when  history  had  its  origin,  practices 
and  ideas  to  which  under  the  Roman  Empire  the  people 
still  clung,  and  which  even  partially  survived  the  conver- 
sion of  the  masses  to  Christianity,  although  the  Church 
condemned  them  as  pagan.  Until  the  end  of  antiquity  and 
even  in  the  Middle  Ages,  banquets,  at  which  wine  flowed 
abundantly,  were  still  held  on  anniversaries  by  kinsfolk 
and  friends  near  the  remains  of  those  they  loved.42 

When,  however,  the  conception  of  survival  in  the  tomb 

39  See  Lecture  I,  p.  54. 

40  IUd.,  p.  57. 

4i  Calder,  Journal  of  'Roman  Studies,  1912,  p.  254. 
42  See  above,  Lecture  I,  p.  55  ss. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  201 

was  superseded  or  overshadowed  by  that  of  survival  in 
the  nether  world,  the  repast  of  the  dead  was  also  trans- 
ferred thither.  Henceforth  it  was  in  the  Elysian  Fields 
that  pious  souls  could  take  their  place  at  the  table  of  the 
Blessed.  The  Orphics  were  the  first  to  introduce  into 
Greece  this  new  idea,  which  was,  however,  no  more  than 
the  development  of  a  pre-Hellenic  belief,  and  it  spread 
through  the  mysteries  of  Dionysos43  to  every  part  of  the 
ancient  world :  the  ritualistic  repasts  in  which  the  initiate 
took  part,  the  drunkenness  which  exalted  their  whole 
being,  were  for  the  adepts  of  this  cult  at  once  a  foretaste 
and  a  warrant  of  the  happiness  reserved  for  them  in  that 
eternal  feast  of  the  subterranean  world  in  which  a  sweet 
intoxication  would  rejoice  their  soul.  That  forgetfulness 
of  all  cares  which  the  divine  liquor  gave  was  connected 
with  Lethe,  the  water  of  which,  according  to  mythology, 
souls  drank  that  they  might  lose  all  memory  of  their 
former  life. 

An  immense  number  of  reliefs,  scattered  throughout 
the  whole  extent  of  the  Eoman  Empire,  bear  witness  to 
the  popularity  of  the  belief  in  this  form  of  immortality. 
The  dead  man  who  has  been  made  a  hero  and  whose 
family  comes  to  make  sacrifices  to  him  is  stretched  on  a 
couch  and  lifts  the  rhyton  which  holds  the  heady  drink 
of  Bacchus,  while  before  him,  on  a  little  table,  dishes  are 
placed.  These  banquets  took  place,  as  we  have  said,  in  the 
Elysian  Fields,  and  the  idea  of  the  repast  thus  met  and 
combined  with  the  idea  of  rest.  The  Blessed  were  imag- 
ined as  lying  on  a  soft  bed  of  flowered  grass,  taking  part 
in  a  perpetual  feast,  to  the  accompaniment  of  music  and 
songs.  Lucian  in  his  "True  Histories"44  describes,  with 
ironical  exaggeration,  the  joys  of  these  guests  who  are 
stretched  comfortably  among  the  flowers  of  a  fragrant 
meadow  in  the  shade  of  leafy  trees,  and  who  gather,  in- 
stead of  fruit,  crystal  goblets,  which  fill  with  wine  as  soon 
as  they  are  placed  on  the  table. 

43  See  Introd.,  p.  35;  Lecture  IV,  p.  126. 

44  Lueian,  Verae  hist.,  II,  14. 


202  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

In  spite  of  the  mockery  of  sceptics  these  beliefs  still 
had  some  faithful  partisans  even  at  the  end  of  paganism. 
A  picture  discovered  in  the  catacomb  of  Praetextatus 
shows  us  a  priest  of  the  Thraco-Phrygian  god  Sabazios 
celebrating  a  mystic  banquet  with  six  of  his  fellows,  and 
another  fresco  represents  the  introduction  of  a  veiled 
woman  into  the  garden  of  delights,  where  she  has  been 
judged  worthy  of  being  received  at  the  table  of  virtuous 
souls.45 

Sometimes  in  the  reliefs  of  the  " funeral  banquet"  the 
dead  are  seen  wearing  on  their  head  the  bushel  (modius) 
of  Serapis,  with  whom,  after  a  virtuous  life,  they  have  been 
identified.  This  indicates  a  confusion,  to  which  much  other 
testimony  bears  witness,  between  the  Bacchic  mysteries 
and  the  cult  of  the  Alexandrian  god.46  Serapis  is  the  great 
master  of  the  feast  (o-vfXTroo-iapxqs)?1  the  host  who  must 
in  the  nether  world  entertain  those  faithful  to  him.  Thus 
the  eschatological  beliefs  of  the  Nile  Valley  mingled  with 
those  of  Greece.  In  the  country  of  burning  sun,  where  a 
straying  traveller  runs  the  risk  of  dying  of  thirst  on  the 
arid  stretches  of  sand,  the  hope  expressed  above  all  others 
for  him  who  accomplishes  the  great  pilgrimage  to  the 
abode  of  the  infernal  divinities,  is  that  he  may  find  where- 
with to  quench  his  consuming  thirst.  "May  Osiris  give 
thee  fresh  water"  is  a  wish  which  the  votaries  of  the 
Egyptian  god  often  inscribed  on  their  tombs.  Thus  the 
repast  in  the  other  world  was  to  be  above  all  a  refresh- 
ment (refrigerium).  The  word  passed  into  Christian  lan- 
guage to  denote  both  earthly  "agape"  or  sacred  meal  and 
the  bliss  of  the  other  world,  and  even  today  the  Roman 
Church  prays  for  the  spiritual  " refreshment"  of  the 
dead.48 

We  touch  here  on  a  question  which  is  not  yet  completely 

45  Best  reproduction,  Wilpert,  Pitture  delle  Catacombe  Bomane,  II,  132- 
133. 

46  See  above,  Introd.,  pp.  35,  37. 

47  Aelius  Arist.,  XLV  (VIII),  27  (p.  360,  Keil). 

48  See  my  Oriental  Beligions,  Chap.  IV,  end. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  203 

elucidated,  that  of  the  relation  established  between  the 
funeral  banquet  and  the  salvation  of  those  who  took  part 
in  it. 

In  Rome  from  the  end  of  the  Republic  onwards  this 
banquet,  amid  the  general  decline  of  faith  in  immortality, 
was  increasingly  detached  from  the  tomb  and  became 
a  guild  or  domestic  ceremony.  The  tendency  was  to  re- 
duce it  to  the  repast  of  a  family  or  confraternity,  to  the 
perpetuation  among  men  of  the  memory  of  him  whose 
features  were  preserved  by  a  statue  or  picture.  But  the 
funeral  cult  acquired  new  meaning  with  the  spread  of 
Oriental  religions.  It  did  not  cease  to  be  useful  to  the  dead 
who  were  its  object,  to  whose  subsistence  in  the  beyond 
and  safe  arrival  in  the  Elysian  Fields  it  was  still  thought 
to  be  necessary.  The  offerings  of  the  living  sustained 
them  on  their  dangerous  and  hard  journey  thither;  the 
food  and  drink  restored  them  on  the  long  road  they  had 
to  travel  before  they  reached  the  place  of  everlasting 
refreshment. 

But  the  funeral  repast  was  also  salutary  to  those  who 
offered  it,  and  not  only  because  it  ensured  to  them  the 
good  will  of  a  spirit  or  demon  capable  of  protecting  them. 
This  banquet,  at  which  wine  flowed  profusely,  was  like 
the  "orgies"  of  the  Bacchic  and  Oriental  mysteries,  and 
the  resemblance  is  partly  explained  by  an  identity  of 
kind. 

The  ritual  of  the  gods  whose  death  and  resurrection 
were  commemorated — Bacchus,  Osiris,  Attis,  Adonis — 
was  probably  a  development  of  the  funeral  ritual,  and  the 
banquet  of  initiation  was  thus  related  to  the  banquet  at 
the  grave.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was  believed  that  by  amystic 
union  with  the  god,  men  could  share  his  blessed  lot  after 
the  transient  trial  of  a  death  like  his.49  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  with  a  dead  man  that  a  repast  was  taken,  but  with 
one  who  also,  in  some  sort,  had  become  a  god,  who  had 
preceded  the  diners  into  the  other  world  and  awaited 

49  See  Lecture  IV,  p.  122;  Introd.,  p.  34. 


204  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

them  there.  "Live  happy  and  pour  out  wine  to  our 
Manes,' '  says  a  Latin  epitaph  of  Syria,  engraved  beneath 
a  scene  of  libation,  "  recollecting  that  one  day  you  will  be 
withus.,,5° 

According  to  an  opinion  which  often  found  expression, 
the  shades  themselves  rejected  whoever  did  not  deserve 
to  enter  the  abode  of  the  Blessed,  but  willingly  received 
the  pious  soul  which  had  always  fulfilled  its  duty  towards 
them.51  For  admission  to  this  club  of  posthumous  diners 
a  members '  vote  was  necessary.  Thus  the  funeral  banquet 
took  on  the  character  of  a  mystic  banquet ;  that  is,  it  came 
to  be  conceived  as  a  prelibation  of  the  banquet  at  which 
the  elect  feasted  in  the  other  world.  The  wish  which  the 
guests  made  to  each  other — " Drink  and  live!" — became 
an  allusion,  no  more  to  this  earthly  life,  but  to  that  other 
existence  in  which  they  would  participate  in  the  felicity 
of  him  who  had  gone  before  them  and  who  would  help 
them  to  rejoin  him  therein.  The  following  advice, 
repeated  elsewhere  in  various  forms,  is  found  on  the  tomb 
of  a  priest  of  Sabazios :  "Drink,  eat,  jest  and  come  to  me 
.  .  .  that  is  what  you  will  carry  away  with  you"  (hoc 
tecum  feres).52  This  is  not  to  be  understood  here  as  an 
Epicurean  invitation  to  enjoy  life  because  all  else  is 
vain,53  but  a  veiled  expression  of  faith  in  the  efficacy  for 
the  salvation  of  the  initiate  attributed  to  the  joyous  ban- 
quets which  gathered  men  about  a  tomb. 

The  connection  between  the  beliefs  of  the  mysteries  and 
the  hopes  attached  to  the  funeral  cult  became  more  inti- 
mate as  immortality  brought  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
nearer  the  celestial  divinities.  The  idea  that  some  few 
privileged  mortals  win  admission  to  the  banquet  of  the 
gods  is  very  ancient.  An  inscription  of  Sendjerli  in  Syria, 
which  goes  back  to  the  eighth  century  before  our  era, 
orders  sacrifices  to  be  made  in  order  that  the  soul  of  King 

so  CIL,  III,  14165. 

5i  See  Lecture  I,  p.  68 ;  II,  p.  86 ;  V,  p.  134. 

52Bucheler,  Carm.  epigr.,  1317=CIL,  VI,  142;  cf.  Plato,  Phaedo,  p.  107  D. 

53  As  it  is  elsewhere;  cf.  Introd.,  p.  11. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  205 

Panamu  "may  eat  and  drink  with  the  god  Hadad,"54 
and  Greek  mythology  told  that  certain  heroes,  such  as 
Heracles,  who  had  been  carried  off  to  heaven,  had  there 
become  the  table  companions  of  the  gods.  Horace  states 
that  Augustus,  borne  to  the  ethereal  summits,  will  there 
rest  between  Hercules  and  Pollux,  "drinking  nectar 
with  his  rosy  lips."55  But  we  have  seen  elsewhere  that 
apotheosis,  or  deification,  which  was  at  first  the  privilege 
of  an  aristocracy,  became  the  common  lot  of  all  pious 
souls,56  and  that  the  Elysian  Fields  were  transferred  from 
the  depths  of  the  infernal  realm  to  the  upper  spheres  of 
the  world.  The  repast  of  the  Blessed  was  thus  transported 
to  heaven.57  This  removal  to  the  region  of  the  stars  seems 
to  have  been  first  made  in  the  astral  religion  of  Syria,  but 
it  was  commonly  accepted  in  western  paganism.  This  is 
why  in  funeral  reliefs  of  the  Roman  period,  in  which  the 
dead  are  shown  banqueting,  such  representations  are 
placed  in  the  upper  part  of  the  stele,  above  the  scenes  of 
earthly  life  which  fill  the  lower  portion  of  the  stone.  The 
emperor  Julian  is  giving  us  a  mocking  picture  of  this 
repast  of  the  heroes,  when  in  one  of  his  satires  he  shows 
us  the  shades  of  the  Caesars  at  table  immediately  beneath 
the  moon,  in  the  highest  zone  of  the  atmospheres — in 
accordance  with  the  ideas  of  the  Stoics.58  Men  readily 
fashioned  the  heroes  who  tasted  the  joys  of  Olympus  on 
the  pattern  of  the  celestial  divinities — resplendent  with 
light,  clothed  in  garments  of  dazzling  whiteness,  their 
heads  crowned  with  rays  or  surrounded  by  a  luminous 
nimbus,  singing,  as  in  a  Greek  symposium,  melodious 
hymns. 

The  philosophers  of  course  gave  a  symbolical  interpre- 
tation of  the  intoxication  of  the  souls  which  took  part  in 
the  feast,  explaining  it  as  the  ravishing  of  reason  pene- 

64  Lagrange,  Religions  semitiquest,  1905,  p.  493. 

55  Horace,  Od.,  Ill,  3,  12. 

56  Lecture  IV,  p.  113  s.,  116  ss. 

67  See,  for  instance,  Kaibel,  Epigr.  Graeca,  312,  13. 

58  Julian,  Caesares,  p.  307  C;  cf.  IntrocL,  p.  29;  Lecture  III,  p.  98. 


206  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

trated  by  divine  intelligence.  We  will  return  to  their 
doctrines  presently. 

The  Jews  of  the  Alexandrian  period  shared  the  belief 
in  the  celestial  banquet  with  the  Syrian  paganism  and 
transmitted  it  to  the  Christians.  The  Paradise  of  the 
elect  was  often  conceived  as  a  shady  garden  where  tables 
were  set  out  at  which  immortal  guests  passed  their  time 
in  endless  joy.  Thus,  not  to  mention  better-known  texts, 
Aphraates,  a  Syriac  author  of  the  first  half  of  the  fourth 
century,  depicts  the  felicity  of  the  Blessed,  clothed  in 
light,  who  are  admitted  to  the  divine  table  and  are  there 
fed  with  food  which  never  fails.  * '  There  the  air  is  pleas- 
ant and  serene,  a  brilliant  light  shines,  trees  grow  of 
which  the  fruit  ripens  perpetually,  of  which  the  leaves 
never  fall,  and  beneath  these  shades,  which  give  out  a 
sweet  fragrance,  the  souls  eat  this  fruit  and  are  never 
satiated."59 

The  representation  of  this  feast  of  Paradise  recurs 
several  times  in  the  paintings  of  the  catacombs,  but  in 
them  the  wine  is  poured  out  by  Peace  (Eirene)  and 
Charity  (Agape).  An  allegorical  explanation  gave  a 
spiritual  meaning  to  the  food  and  drink  consumed  by  the 
elect.  But  the  old  idea  which  was  at  the  root  of  all  the 
later  development,  the  idea  of  a  material  repast  in  which 
the  dead  participated,  did  not  disappear  from  popular 
faith  when  the  conception  that  souls  rose  to  the  sky  was 
adopted,  and  in  many  countries  it  has  not  been  obliterated 
even  today.60 


Even  in  the  pagan  period,  as  we  have  said,  enlightened 
minds  accepted  the  old  descriptions  of  joyous  feasts  in 
fresh  meadows  only  in  a  figurative  sense.  A  less  coarse 
conception  of  immortality  suffered  them  to  be  looked 
upon  only  as  symbols  or  metaphors.  This  conception  of 
celestial  beatitude  originated  not  in  the  cult  of  the  dead 

59  Patrologia  Orientalis,  I,  p.  1014. 

60  See  above,  Lecture  I,  p.  55  s. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  207 

but  in  the  cult  of  the  gods.  It  was  at  first  as  material  as 
preceding  conceptions,  but  it  became  purified  as  the  idea 
of  psychic  survival  was  spiritualised. 

We  have  seen  in  another  lecture61  that  the  * '  sight  of  the 
god"  who  was  adored  was  the  highest  degree  of  initia- 
tion. Theurgy  flattered  itself  that  it  could  evoke  divine 
apparitions  at  will.  These  visions  have  been  described  to 
us  by  those  who  claimed  to  have  been  favoured  with 
them.62  Their  character  and  their  effects  have  moreover 
been  analysed  in  detail  in  the  treatise  of  Jamblichus,  On 
the  Mysteries.  The  impression  most  immediately  pro- 
duced by  these  epiphanies  was  a  boundless  admiration  for 
their  splendour.  The  incomparable  beauty  with  which  the 
gods  were  radiant,  the  supernatural  light  in  which  they 
were  wrapped,  had  such  an  effect  on  men  that  they  could 
hardly  bear  the  effulgence  and  nearly  lost  consciousness, 
but  their  souls  were  flooded  with  unspeakable  joy  and 
purified  for  ever. 

To  this  ineffable  delight  of  a  heart  possessed  of  divine 
love  there  was  added  the  highest  revelation  for  the  intel- 
ligence.63 Must  not  the  infallible  " gnosis"  be  that  which 
was  the  result  of  instruction  received  directly  from  the 
mouth  of  a  celestial  power  which  had  come  down  to  earth? 

The  devotees  who  had  obtained  the  signal  favour  of 
this  resplendent  vision,  were  thenceforth  united  to  the 
deity  who  had  manifested  himself  to  them,  and  were 
certain  to  share  his  immortal  life.  The  fugitive  pleasure 
which  they  had  felt  on  earth  would  become  a  bliss  without 
end  in  the  kingdom  of  the  dead.  There  they  would  see  face 
to  face  the  god  who  protected  them  and  learn  from  him 
all  that  had  remained  hidden  from  them  in  this  life. 

These  ideas,  half  religious,  half  magical,  are  very 
ancient,  especially  in  Egypt,  but  they  were  transformed 
by  astrolatry.  Here  the  celestial  powers  had  not  to  be 

6i  Lecture  IV,  p.  121. 

62  For  instance,  by  the  physician  Thessalus  (under  Nero);  cf.  Cat.  codd. 
astrol.,  VIII,  3,  p.  137;  VIII,  4,  p.  257. 

63  Cf.  Lecture  IV,  pp.  121,  125  s. 


208  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

summoned  by  prayer  or  invoked  by  incantations  in  order 
that  they  might  come  and  converse  with  the  faithful,  but 
were  perpetually  visible  and  offered  themselves,  day  and 
night,  to  the  veneration  of  humanity. 

Henceforth  the  knowledge  of  divine  things  was  no 
longer  to  be  communicated  by  the  words  which  the  ini- 
tiate believed  that  he  heard  in  the  silence  of  the  sanctuary. 
It  was  revealed  by  a  mysterious  inspiration  to  him  who 
had  deserved  it  by  a  fervent  observation  of  the  heavens.64 
Thus  by  an  illumination  of  the  intelligence  the  astral 
powers  unveiled  their  will  and  the  secrets  of  their  move- 
ments to  their  attentive  servants.  Here  below  this  knowl- 
edge was  always  imperfect  and  fragmentary,  but  it  would 
be  completed  in  another  world,  when  reason  once  more 
would  rise  aloft  to  the  starry  spaces  whence  it  had 
descended. 

This  eschatological  doctrine,  which  made  astronomy 
the  source  of  virtue  and  of  immortality,  could  only  be 
developed  by  a  clergy  devoted  to  the  study  of  that  science. 
Its  first  authors  were  doubtless  the  "  Chaldeans/ '  who 
transmitted  it  to  Greece  with  their  theories  as  to  the  divi- 
sions of  the  sky  and  the  heavenly  bodies.  The  most 
ancient  writing  in  which  this  Oriental  influence  asserts 
itself  clearly  is  the  Epinomis,  probably  a  work  of  the 
astronomer  Philip  of  Opus,  a  disciple  of  Plato.  Let  us 
listen  to  his  own  words  :65 

"When  man  perceives  the  harmony  of  the  sky  and  the 
immovable  order  of  its  revolutions,  he  is  first  filled  with 
joy  and  struck  with  admiration.  Then  the  passion  is  born 
in  him  to  learn  about  them  all  that  it  is  possible  for  his 
mortal  nature  to  know,  for  he  is  persuaded  that  he  will 
thus  lead  the  best  and  happiest  existence  and  will  go  after 
his  death  to  the  places  suited  to  virtue.  Then  being  veri- 
tably and  really  initiate,  pure  reason  taking  part  in  the 
only  wisdom,  he  will  spend  the  rest  of  his  time  in  con- 

e*  See  above,  Lecture  IV,  p.  126. 
ss  P.  896  C;  cf.  p.  992  B. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  209 

templation  of  what  is  most  beautiful  among  all  visible 
things. ' ' 

This  passage  shows  clearly  the  manner  in  which 
astrolatry  modified  ancient  ideas  as  to  the  sight  of  a  god, 
the  reverential  wonder  felt  in  his  presence  by  the  faith- 
ful, the  truth  communicated  to  them  and  the  immortality 
which  completed  their  initiation.  The  doctrine  of  an  intel- 
lectual reward  for  the  Blessed  was  to  attract  scholars  who 
in  this  world  gave  themselves  up  to  study.  Spiritual 
activity,  which  emancipates  from  material  care  and  gives 
man  nobility  and  virtue,  seemed  to  them  to  be  the  only 
occupation  worthy  of  the  elect.  If  the  theory  that  the 
Blessed  would  after  death  find  this  activity  in  the  midst 
of  the  divine  stars,  is  probably  of  "Chaldean"  origin,  it 
was  developed  by  the  Greek  philosophers  and  in  particu- 
lar by  Posidonius.  It  was  also  admitted  into  the  Roman 
mysteries,  which,  being  penetrated  by  the  spirit  of 
Oriental  theologies,  claimed  to  supply  their  adepts  with  a 
complete  explanation  of  the  universe. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  this  system  in  speaking  of 
astral  mysticism.66  Nature  herself  has  destined  man  to 
gaze  upon  the  skies.  Other  animals  are  bent  to  the  earth ; 
he  proudly  lifts  his  head  to  the  stars.  His  eye,  a  tiny  mir- 
ror in  which  immensity  is  reflected,  the  soul's  door,  open 
to  the  infinite,  follows  the  evolutions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  from  here  below.  By  their  splendour  they  make 
men  marvel  and  by  their  majesty  compel  them  to  venera- 
tion. Their  complicated  movements,  ruled  by  an  immova- 
ble rhythm,  are  inconceivable  unless  they  are  endowed 
with  infallible  reason. 

The  observation  of  the  sky  is  not  only  an  inexhaustible 
source  of  aesthetic  emotion.  It  also  causes  the  soul,  a 
detached  parcel  of  the  fires  of  the  ether,  to  enter  into 
communion  with  the  gods  which  shine  in  the  firmament. 
Possessed  with  the  desire  to  know  them,  this  soul  receives 
their  revelations.  They  instruct  it  as  to  their  nature; 

go  See  above,  Lecture  IV,  p.  ]  26. 


210  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

thanks  to  them,  it  understands  the  phenomena  produced 
in  the  cosmic  organism.  Thus  scientific  curiosity  is  also 
conceived  as  a  yearning  for  God.  The  love  of  truth  leads 
to  holiness  more  surely  than  initiations  and  priests. 

Of  the  numerous  passages  in  which  these  ideas  are 
expressed  I  will  recall  one  which  is  well  known  but  is  not 
always  well  understood.67  Virgil  in  his  Georgics  tells  us 
what  he  looks  to  receive  from  the  sweet  Muses  whom  he 
serves,  being  "struck  with  a  great  love  for  them."  Not, 
as  one  would  expect,  poetic  inspiration  but  physical 
science.  The  Muses  are  to  point  out  to  him  the  paths  of 
the  stars  in  the  sky,  to  explain  to  him  the  reasons  for 
eclipses,  tides  and  earthquakes  and  the  variations  in  the 
length  of  the  day.  "Happy  is  he,"  the  poet  concludes, 
"who  can  know  the  causes  of  things,  who  treads  under- 
foot all  fear  and  inexorable  fate  and  vain  rumours  as  to 
greedy  Acheron."68  There  is,  in  spite  of  a  reminiscence 
of  Lucretius,  nothing  Epicurean  in  the  idea  here  ex- 
pressed. The  man  who  has  won  knowledge  of  Nature, 
which  is  divine,  escapes  the  common  lot  and  does  not  fear 
death  because  a  glorious  immortality  is  reserved  for  him. 

For  these  joys  which  the  acquisition  of  wisdom  gives 
here  below,  partially  and  intermittently,  are  in  the  other 
life  bestowed  with  absolute  fulness  and  prolonged  for 
ever.  Reason,  set  free  from  corporeal  organs,  attains  to 
an  infinite  perceptive  power  and  can  satisfy  the  insatiable 
desire  of  knowledge  which  is  innate  within  reason  itself. 
The  Blessed  souls  will  thus  be  able  at  once  to  delight  in 
the  marvellous  spectacle  of  the  world  and  to  obtain  per- 
fect understanding  thereof.  They  will  not  weary  of  fol- 
lowing the  rhythmic  evolutions  of  the  chorus  of  stars  of 
which  they  form  part,  of  noting  the  causes  and  the  rules 

67  The  true  interpretation  has  been  given  by  Bevan,  Stoics  and  Sceptics, 
1913,  p.  112  s. 

es  Georg.,  II,  489  ss. : 

"  Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas, 
Atque  metus  omnis  et  inexorabile  Fatum 
Subiecit  pedibus,  strepitumque  Acherontis  avari. " 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  211 

which  determine  their  movements.  From  the  height  of 
their  celestial  observatory  they  will  also  perceive  the 
phenomena  of  our  globe  and  the  actions  of  men.  Nothing 
which  happens  in  nature  or  in  human  society  will  be 
hidden  from  them.  This  speculative  life  (£105  Oecop-qriKo^) 
is  the  only  one  on  earth  or  in  heaven  which  is  worthy  of 
the  sage. 

To  observe  the  course  of  the  stars  throughout  eternity 
may  appear  to  us  a  desperately  monotonous  occupation, 
a  rather  unenviable  beatitude.  For  the  stars,  shorn  of 
their  divinity,  are  for  us  no  more  than  gaseous  or  solid 
bodies  circulating  in  space,  and  we  analyse  with  the  spec- 
troscope their  chemical  composition.  But  the  ancients 
felt  otherwise :  they  describe  with  singular  eloquence  the 
" cosmic  emotion''  which  seized  them  as  they  contem- 
plated their  southern  skies — their  soul  was  ravished, 
borne  on  the  wings  of  enthusiasm  into  the  midst  of  the 
dazzling  gods  which  from  the  earth  had  been  descried 
throbbing  in  the  radiance  of  the  ether.  These  mystic 
transports  were  compared  by  them  to  Dionysiac  intoxica- 
tion; an  "abstemious  drunkenness"69  raised  man  to  the 
stars  and  kindled  in  him  an  impassioned  ardour  for 
divine  knowledge.  And  as  the  exaltation  produced  by  the 
vapours  of  wine  gave  to  the  mystics  of  Bacchus  a  fore- 
taste of  the  joyous  inebriation  promised  to  them  in  the 
Elysian  banquet,  so  the  ecstasy  which  uplifted  him  who 
contemplated  the  celestial  gods  caused  him  to  feel  the 
happiness  of  another  life  while  he  was  yet  here  below.70 

"I  know,"  says  an  epigram  of  Ptolemy  himself,71  "I 
know  that  I  am  mortal,  born  for  a  day,  but  when  I  follow 
the  serried  crowd  of  the  stars  in  their  circular  course  my 

69N?70dXto5  n^dy,  Philo.,  probably  after  Posidonius. 
™  Cf.  Lecture  IV,  p.  126. 
71  Anthol.  Palatina,  IX,  577 : 

015'  8ti  dvarbs  iy<b  teal  4<pdp.epos,  d\\'  8rav  Aarpuv 

/xaarevo}  wvKivas  ap.<pi8p6p.ovs  ZXikcls 
oi>K€T  iirirpavu}  yairjs  iroclv,  dXXd  irap"1  avrip 

Zavl  deoTpecpios  Trlpir\apai  ap.fi  poal-qs. 


212  AFTER  LIFE  IN  ROMAN  PAGANISM 

feet  touch  the  earth  no  longer :  I  go  to  Zeus  himself  and 
sate  myself  with  ambrosia,  the  food  of  the  gods. ' ' 

In  the  same  way  the  intoxication  produced  by  music, 
the  divine  possession  which  purified  man  by  detaching 
him  from  material  cares,  caused  him  to  taste  for  an  in- 
stant the  felicity  which  would  fill  his  whole  being  when  he 
should  harken  to  the  sweet  harmony  produced  by  the 
rotation  of  the  spheres,  the  celestial  concert  which  the 
ears  of  mortals  are  incapable  of  hearing,  as  their  eyes 
cannot  bear  the  brilliance  of  the  sun.  Men's  instruments 
could  cause  the  perception  of  only  a  weak  echo  of  these 
delightful  chords,  but  they  awoke  in  the  soul  a  passionate 
desire  for  heaven,  where  the  unspeakable  joy  produced  by 
the  cosmic  symphony  would  be  felt. 

The  beatitude  of  the  elect,  as  conceived  by  astral  im- 
mortality, was  a  magnified  projection  to  heaven  of  the 
joys  which  a  religion  of  the  erudite  held  to  be  most  worthy 
of  virtuous  spirits.  When  pagan  theology  transported  the 
abode  of  the  most  favoured  souls  outside  the  boundaries 
of  the  universe  to  a  world  beyond  the  senses,72  the  happi- 
ness of  these  souls  could  no  longer  consist  solely  in  the 
sight  and  the  hearing  of  the  motion  of  the  spheres.  This 
entirely  material  conception  of  felicity  in  the  Beyond  had 
to  be  spiritualised.  The  ecstasy  of  Plotinus  does  not  stop 
short  at  the  visible  gods  of  the  firmament ;  in  it  the  soul 
is  transported  beyond  even  the  world  of  ideas  and 
reaches,  in  an  upward  rush  of  love,  the  divine  unity  in 
which  it  merges,  ridding  itself  of  all  consciousness  and  all 
form.  This  is  the  supreme  goal  which  none  can  attain 
after  death  save  him  who  has  conquered  perfect  purity. 
But  the  aristocratic  intellectualism  of  this  philosophy 
reserved  this  union  with  the  first  Principle  for  an  elite 
of  sages.  Paganism  in  its  decline  believed  in  a  hierarchy 
of  souls  ascending  to  the  divinity,  in  a  scale  of  merit 
corresponding  to  various  degrees  of  rewards:  the  ma- 
jority lived  among  the  stars  and,  divine  like  them,  helped 

72  See  Introd.,  p.  4. 


THE  FELICITY  OF  THE  BLESSED  213 

them  to  govern  the  earth— we  already  know  their  blessed 
lot;  others  who  were  more  perfect  entered  the  intelli- 
gible cosmos73  and  their  happiness,  as  it  was  imagined,  is 
but  a  more  exalted  counterpart  of  the  joys  attributed  to 
the  former  class.  They  were  plunged  in  immovable  con- 
templation of  pure  Ideas ;  forgetting  earthly  things,  they 
were  wholly  absorbed  by  this  intense  activity  of  thought 
which  was  to  them  an  inexpressible  joy.  Moreover,  being 
set  free  from  the  bonds  of  their  flesh  and  of  their  indi- 
viduality, they  could  embrace  in  a  single  glance  all  the 
separate  intelligences  which  together  formed  the  divine 
Nous,  and  thus  had  a  simultaneous  intuition  of  every- 
thing, the  direct  comprehension  of  the  ultimate  reason  of 
things. 

Beatific  vision  of  the  splendour  of  God,  immediate  per- 
ception of  all  truth,  mystic  love  for  an  ineffable  Beauty — 
these  were  sublime  speculations  which  were  to  be  unend- 
ingly reproduced  and  developed  after  the  fall  of  pagan- 
ism. Unavailing  efforts  to  represent  a  state  inconceivable 
to  any  human  imagination,  they  expressed  the  ardent 
yearning  of  religious  souls  towards  an  ideal  of  perfection 
and  felicity.  But  this  high  religious  spirituality  had  grad- 
ually broken  away  from  somewhat  coarse  beliefs  which 
had  little  by  little  been  purified.  The  rapture  which  trans- 
ported Plotinus  to  those  summits  where  reason,  bewil- 
dered as  in  a  swoon,  forsakes  even  thought  in  order  to 
lose  itself  within  a  principle  which  is  above  all  definition, 
is  directly  connected  with  the  ecstasy  which  in  the  temples 
of  Egypt  came  upon  the  devotee  who,  like  the  philoso- 
pher, conversed  " alone  with  the  lone  god,"74  whom  the 
priest  had  evoked,  and  believed  that  in  this  vision  he 
found  a  guarantee  of  eternal  happiness. 

73  See  Lecture  III,  p.  108. 

74  MSvos  irpbs  fiSvif).  The  expression  had  been  used  by  religion  before  being 
taken  over  by  philosophy.  Cf.  Le  culte  egyptien  et  le  mystidsme  de  Violin, 
in  Monuments  Piot,  XXV,  1922,  p.  78  ss. 


INDEX 


Ablutions,  118;   cf.  "  Lustration ' ' 

Absorption  in  God,  36  s.,  42,  122 

Acheron,  5,  8,  15,  27,  78,  80s., 
84  s.,  149,  210 

Achilles,  74 

Adonis,  116,  203 

Aeacus,  10,  75 

Aeneid,  48,  82  s.,  151 ;  Aeneas,  74, 
128;  cf.  "Virgil" 

Africa,  93,  120,  139,  192 

Age  of  reason,  137 

Agricola,  18 

Agrippina,  131 

Ahriman,  89;  cf.  "Spirit  of  Evil" 

Air  full  of  souls,  26,  59,  160— pu- 
rifies, 119,  143,  186;  cf.  Winds 
—Aerial    bodies,    103,    168;    cf. 

Alexander   of   Abonotichos,   9,   23, 

180 
Alexander  of  Aphrodisias,  6 
Alexander  the  Great,  62 
Alexandria,   17,   20,   79,   96— «ults, 

36,  39;  cf.  "Isis,"  "Serapis" 
Allegorical  interpretations,  12,  21, 

24,  42,  78  ss.,  82,   86,  152,  180, 

195,  206 
Amorgos,   105 
Andromeda,   104 
Angels,  140 

Anima,  59,  167;  cf.  "Soul" 
Ante  diem  (death),  133 
Antinous,  105,  164 
Antipodes,  80s. 
Antonius  Diogenes,  22 
Aphraates,  206 
Apocalypse  of  Peter,  173 
Apocolocyntosis,  179 


Apollo,  112,  123,  156— Musagetes, 

101 
Apollonius  of  Tyana,  23,  164 
Apotheosis  of  heroes,  32,  205 — of 

emperors,  102,  112  s.,  156,  164— 

of  Claudius,  179 — of  great  men, 

114  s. — in   mysteries,    118  ss. — of 

children,  138  ss. 
Appius  Claudius  Pulcher,  22 
Apuleius,  108,  n.  41 
Aristarchus,  79 
Aristophanes,  95 
Aristotle,   6,   17,  77,   98,   131;    cf. 

1 '  Peripatetic ' ' 
Armenia,  52 
Arnold  (Matthew),  116 
Asia  Minor,  112;  cf.  "Cybele" 
Astral  body,  169 

Astrolatry,  123,  207;  cf.  "Stars" 
Astrology,    17,    28,    92  s.,   96,   100, 

102,  117,  187 
Ataraxia,  8,  191 
Atargatis,  121 
Athribis,  93 
Atmosphere,   25,  81,  162,  168;   cf. 

"Hades" 
Attis,  35  ss.,  39,  116,  203 
Augustus,  156 
Avernus,  74 
Axiochos,  79 

Babylonia,  94,  156;  cf.  "Chal- 
deans ' ' 

Bacchus,  52,  120,  138  s.,  202,  211 
—Bacchantes,  62— cf.  "Diony- 
sos" 

Banquet;  funeral,  53  ss.,  200  ss  — 
ritual,     120  ss.,     203  s.— eternal, 


216 


INDEX 


35,    151,    201  ss. — of    the    gods, 

204 
Biothanati,  26,  129  ss.,  141  ss. 
Bird   (soul),  59,  157  s. 
Black  hand,  135 
Black  souls,  166 
Blood  poured   on   tombs,   51 — seat 

of    life,    51,    118 — in    mysteries, 

113,  201  ss. 
Boats    (sun   and   moon),    92,    113, 

154  s. — carry     souls,     155;      cf. 

"Charon" 
Body  carried  to  heaven,  159,  164; 

cf.    165,    167 — soul    attached    to 

body,     182  s.;     cf.     44  ss.;     cf. 

"Corpse" 
Book  of  the  Dead,  148,  175,  193— 

of    Enoch,    108,    198— of    Arta 

Viraf,  175 
Boscoreale  (goblets),  11 
Bread,  120 
Buddhism,  177 

Burial    necessary,    64  ss.,    197 — re- 
fused, 65,   143,  145  s.;   cf.  "  In- 

sepulti" 
Byzantines,  132,  146 

Caesar  (Julius),  8,  51,  104 

Calendar,  102 

California,  148 

Caligula,  67,  131 

Callimachus,  17 

Cameo  of  Paris,  156 

Cancer  and  Capricorn,  153 

Carducci,  115 

Carneades,  6 

Castor  and  Pollux,  104,  113,  205; 

cf.  ' '  Dioscuri ' ' 
Castor  of  Ehodes,  22,  97 
Catacombs,  202,  206 
Catasterism,  104,  113;  cf.  "Stars" 
Cato  of  Utica,  26,  144 
Catullus,  17 
Celsus,  88 

Celts,  see  "Druids,"   "Gaul" 
Cena  novemdialis,  53 


Cenotaph,  65;   cf.  48 
Cerberus,   10,   83,   87 
Chaldaic  oracles,  38,  103 
Chaldeans,  28,  35,  37  s.,  95,  100  ss., 
107  s.,  160,  208  s.j   cf.  "Baby- 
lonia ' ' 

Chariot  of  the  sun,  102,  113,  156  s. 

Charon,  85,  149,  174— Charon's 
boat,  10,  25,  66,  75,  80,  155 

Children  sacrificed,  135 — games  in 
other  life,  138  s. — unbaptised, 
198;  cf.  "Untimely  death," 
' '  Apotheosis ' ' 

Christians,  pagan  customs  of,  52, 
55  s.,  119,  145  s.,  200— beliefs, 
68  s.,  90,  92,  108,  140  s.,  143, 
153,  187,  196  ss. — biothanati, 
146 

Chrysippus,  13 

Church,   see  "Christians" 

Cicero,  19,  26  s.,  31  ss.,  44,  83, 
104  s.,  Ill,  113,  135,  152,  161, 
165 

Circe,  74,  180 

Circumpotatio,  55 

Claudius,  152,  179 

Clean  thes,  13 

Cocytus,  78 

Colleges  (funeral),  67,  143 

Comet,   104;    cf.  "Star" 

Commodianus,  146 

Como,  192 

Conflagration  of  the  world,  12  ss. 

Consus,  71 

Contemplation  of  stars,  209;  cf. 
1  <  Sight  of  God ' ' 

Copernicus,  28,   109 

Corinthians   (Epistle  to),  11,  106 

Cornutus,  14 

Corpse  (life  of),  45,  164;  cf. 
"Body" 

Corstopitum,  156 

Crescent   (symbol),  93,  97,  99 

Crown  of  life,  117 

Curse  tablets,  see  "Defixiones" 

Cybele,  35  ss.,  39 


INDEX 


217 


Cynics,  65 
Cyprus,  135 

Danaides,  85,  87,  171,  181 

Dante,  43,  109,  174,  187 

Dead;  food  of,  50 — partake  of  ban- 
quets, 54  s. — communicate  with 
living,  58  s. — feared,  47 — malev- 
olent, 63  s. — tutelary  spirits, 
60  s. — keep  character  of  living, 
73 — received  by  shades  or  not, 
68,  86,  193 — physical  character 
of,  165  ss.;  cf.  "Ghosts," 
"Soul,"  "Spirits" 

Death,  sleep,  10,  45,  192— not  to 
be  feared,  7  ss.,  19 — second  d., 
110 — untimely  d.,  128  ss. — rep- 
resented as  a  monster,  117 

Defixiones,  63,  68,  134 

Deification,  34,  Ills.;  cf.  "Apo- 
theosis ' ' 

Demetrius  of  Tarsus,  186 

Democritus,  5,  7 

Demons,  26,  29,  60,  62,  80,  86  s., 
88  s.,  133,  136,  145,  154,  162, 
172,  175 

Destiny,  see  "Fatalism" 

Devotio,  63 

Di  animates,  149 

Dido,  59 

Didyma,  99 

Dio  Cassius,  62 

Dionysos  (mysteries),  35,  120,  123, 
201s.,  211;  cf.  "Macchus" 

Dioscuri,  156;   cf.  "Castor" 

Dolphins,  180 

Domitian,  103 

Druids,  23,  94,  178 

Druses,  178 

Dualism,  24,  89,  117,  188 

Eagle  carries  souls,   102,  113,   157 

ss. 
Earth      (Mother),     36,      86;      cf. 

"Cybele,"  "Moon" 
Eclecticism,  21,  27 


Ecstasy,  42,  121,  126,  196 
Egypt,  48  s.,  54,  86,  112,  134, 
157,  173,  177  s—  Egyptian  reli- 
gion, 45,  76,  79,  94,  113,  122  s., 
148,  153,  167,  175,  202,  207,  213 
— in  Eome,  36  ss. 
Elements  purify  the  soul,   25,   81, 

119,  185  ss.,  196,  201 
Eleusis,  34,  138;   cf.  "Mysteries" 
Elijah,  156 

Elysian  fields,  34,   73,   76,  79,  84, 

120,  138  s.,  151,  165,  171  ss., 
184,  193  s. — in  the  moon,  25, 
81  s.,  97 — about  the  moon,  98 — 
among  the  stars,  104,  187 — rep- 
resented, 74;    cf.  "Hades" 

Emperors,  divinity  of,  112  s.,  cf. 
' '  Apotheosis ' ' — not  subject  to 
fate,  117;  cf.  "Kings" 

Ennius,  21,  79,  165 

Enoch,  108,  198 

Epictetus,  12,  14 

Epicurus,  7  ss.,  20 — Epicureans, 
65,  77,  110,  195,  204,  210 

Epinomis,  208 

Epiphanies  of  gods,   121,  123 

Epoptism,  121;  cf.  "Sight  of 
god" 

Erinyes,  26,  75,  78,  173  ss.,  181  s.; 
cf.  ' '  Furies ' ' 

Eros,  138 

Esdras,  198 

Eternal  house  (tomb),  3,  48 — eter- 
nal rest,  196,  199 — eternal  pains, 
76,  88,  172 — eternal  banquet, 
see  ' '  Banquet ' ' 

Etruscans,  5,  53  s.,  63,  71,  74  s., 
117,  149  s.,  155,  174,  178. 

Eusebius  of  Alexandria,  92 

Evil  eye,  154 

Evil,  Spirit  of,  see  "Spirit" 

Executed  criminals,  145;  cf.  "  Bio- 
thanati" 

Fatalism,  117,  133  s.,  136,  179, 
183 


218 


INDEX 


Fates,  84,  134,  138 

Fatum,  133 

Faustina,  156 

Fire,  stoic,  12  ss. — heavenly,  28, 
185;  cf.  "  Stars  ''—of  hell,  175 
s  — purifies,  119,  176,  185  ss.; 
cf.  l  l  Pyriphlegeton  " 

Fish,  sacred,  121 

Food  of  the  dead,  50  s.,  56 

Fortunate  islands,  see  "Islands" 

Freer  collection,  154 

Funeral  cult,  47  ss. — funeral  ban- 
quet, see  "Banquet,"  "Sculp- 
ture" 

Galileo,  109 

Ganymede,   159 

Garden  of  tombs,  57,  200 

Gates,  of  Hades,  70,  80— of  heaven, 
153,  162  s. 

Gaul,  23;  cf.  "Druids" 

Gello,  134 

Genii,  60,  142 

Germanicus,  156 

Ghosts,  4,  7,  62  s.,  67  s.,  83,  91, 
130  s.,  134,  165,  197 

Gladiators,  51,  136 

Gnosis  (sacred  lore),  23,  111,  114, 
121  ss.,  125,  207  ss. 

Goat  Star,  105 

Gobryes,  79 

God  immanent,  30;  cf.  "World" 
— transcendent,  41, — identifica- 
tion with  g.,  34,  107  s.;  cf. 
"Soul"— sight  of  God,  121, 
207 — visible  gods  (stars),  31, 
104,  108;  cf.  "Epiphanies"— 
sage,  god  on  earth,  14,  111  s. — 
evil  god,  133 — god  eaten  in  mys- 
teries, 120 

Greek  beliefs,  5,  61,  69,  72  ss.,  79, 
87,  95,  102,  105,  113,  115,  117, 
146  s.,  155,  157,  174,  177— mys- 
teries, 34  s. ;  cf.  "  Dionysos, ' ' 
' '  Eleusis ' ' — funeral  cult,  53  s., 
56 


Guide  of  souls,  see  "Psycho- 
pomp  ' ' 

Hadad,  205 

Hades,  Greek,  4  s.,  72,  134,  148, 
170 — stoic,  14 — Pythagorean,  26, 
78,  81,  181— Neo-Platonic,  41, 
88 — mysteries,  37 — descent  into 
H.,  148  ss.,  171— on  earth,  78, 
181s.— in  the  air,  168;  cf.  "At- 
mosphere ' ' — between  sun  and 
moon,  103;  cf.  "Gate,"  "In- 
feri, "  "  Tartarus, "  "  Nether 
world ' ' 

Hadrian,  104,  157 

Hanged,  143 — rope  amulet,  136 

Harmony  of  spheres,  25,  101,  115, 
212 

Heavens,  three,  106 — eight,  106  s.; 
cf.   "Immortality,"   "Planets" 

Hecate,  92,  134 

Heliodorus  of  Emesa,  68,  86 

Helios,  123,  130;  cf.  "Sun" 

Hell  dragon,  154;  cf.  "Hades" 

Hemispheres  opposed,  80  s. 

Hercules,  104,  113,  123,  144,  167, 
205 — at  cross-roads,  150,  194 

Hermes,  180 — soul-guide,  25,  85, 
105,  138,  163— (Thot),  122 

Hermes  Trismegistus,  38,  114,  121, 
180,  186 

Herodotus,   177 

Heroes,  113  ss.,  140,  142,  149,  167, 
204  s. 

Hesiod,  350 

Hie  requiescit,  191,  197 

Hierapolis,  159 

Hipparchus,  96 

Honey,  52,  119  s. 

Horace,  12,  130,  142,  205 

Horse  carries  souls,  155  s. 

Hostanes,  136 

Hypsistos  (Most  High),  41,  104, 
108,  130 

Icaromenippus,  106 


INDEX 


219 


Imago,  166 

Immortality,  earthly,  19  s. — celes- 
tial, 25  ss.,  29,  32,  37,  91  ss., 
138— lunar,  96  ss.;  cf.  "Moon" 
— solar,  100  ss.;  cf.  "Sun" — 
stellar,  103  ss.;  cf.  "Stars"— 
conception  of  i.,  110 — privilege 
of  divinity,  111 — i.  of  the  few, 
see  "Heroes" 

Incineration,  46 

India,  54,  93,  95,  177 

Infants    (death  of),  128  ss. 

Inferi,  4,  25,  71,  78,  81,  86,  166, 
195;  cf.  "Hades,"  "Nether 
world ' ' 

Innupti,  137 

Insepulti,  25,  64  ss.,  145 — rejected 
by  shades,  68,  86,  193 

Intoxication,  126,  205,  211s.;  cf. 
"Wine" 

Invicti  (stars),  117 

Ion  of  Chios,  95 

Irish  wake,  55 

Isis,  36  s.,  121,  123,  154 

Islands  of  the  Blessed,  25,  80  s., 
96,  155 — of  impious,  175 

Ixion,  84  s.,  171 

Jacob's  ladder,  154 

Jamblichus,  40,  103,  169,  184,  207 

Jews,  35,  89,  108,  135,  142,  197  ss., 

206;  cf.  "Philo" 
John  Climacus,  154 
Josephus,   142 
Journey     to      Hades,      148  ss. — to 

heaven,  152  ss. 
Judaism,  see  "Jews" 
Judgment  of  the  dead,  76,  88,  151, 

172  s. 
Julian  the  Apostate,  9,  42,  98,  157, 

161,  164,  205 
Julius  Caesar,  see  "Caesar" 
Jupiter,    106 — summits    exsuperan- 

tissimus,  108 — star,  107,  187 

Katoptromanteia,  166,  n.  62 


Kings     immortal,     112 — anointing 

of  k.,  119;   cf.  "Emperors" 
Kiss  (last),  59 

Lactantius,  153 

Ladder,   153  ss. 

Larvae,  63 

Lemur es,  4,  60,  72,  131— Lemuria, 

63,  71 
Lesbos,  134 
Lethe,  76,  184,  201 
Libations  on  tombs,  50  ss.,  204 
Libri  Acheruntici,  149 
Lion,  187 
Liternum,  47 

Livia,  wife  of  Drusus,  135 
Lucan,  103 
Lucian  of  Samosata,  8,  23,  39,  49, 

54,  62,  67,  75,  97,  106,  175,  201 
Lucretius,  7,  45  s.,  138,  210 
Lunula,  97 
Lustrations,  118 
Lysimachus,  65 

Maccabees,  142 

Macrobius,  132  s. 

Magi,  79,  95 

Magic,  22,  26,  52,  67,  118,  119, 
124,  130  s.,  133  ss.,  143,  154, 
158,  163,  166— magic  papyri,  86, 
134  ss.;   cf.  "Necromancy" 

Manalis  lapis,  71 

Manes,  4,  18,  32,  47,  54,  60  ss.,  72, 
86,  93,  passim 

Manicheans,  93,  103,  154,  178 

Manilius,  31,  112,  133 

Marcellus,  156 

Marcus  Aurelius,  14,  39 

Mars,  123— star,  107,  131,  141, 
187 

Marseilles,   163 

Martyrs,  143,  145 

Maximus  of  Tyre,  61 

Mazdeans,  89,  95,  175,  188;  cf. 
1 '  Persia ' ' 

Meals,  see  ' '  Banquets ' ' 


220 


INDEX 


Melihraton,  52 

Memoriae  aeternae,  19 

Memory,  Lake  of,  148 

Menander,  141 

Mercury  (star),  107,  187;  of. 
1 1  Hermes ' ' 

Metempsychosis,  26,  41  s.,  74,  78, 
82  s.,  172,  177  ss. — in  beasts, 
179  s.,  183 — in  plants,  179 — 
punishment,  180 

Miletus,  105 

Milk,  52 

Milky  Way,  94,  104,  152  s. 

Minos,  75,  85 

Mirrors  in  magic,  166 

Mithras,  37  s.,  89,  103,  106,  154, 
156,  164,  178;  cf.  163 

Mojave  Indians,  148 

Money  (in  mouth  of  dead),  84 

Monsters,  see  " Death,' '  " Souls' » 

Monteleone    (chariot),  155,  n.  23 

Moon,  28,  29,  86 — new  moon,  91 — 
m.  and  resurrection,  91  s. — 
abode  of  souls,  25  s.,  93  s.,  96  s., 
186,  195 — dissolves  souls,  168 — 
limit  of  heaven,  25,  98  s. — 
Olympic  earth,  97;  cf.  187— 
rules  physical  life,  102,  107;  cf. 
< '  Boat ' ' 

Mother  of  gods,  35  ss. 

Mourning,  47,  51 

Muses,  101,  115,  210 

Music,  24,  132;  cf.  "Harmony  of 
spheres ' ' 

Mussulman,  142 

Mysteries,  Greek,  34  s.,  138;  cf. 
1 '  Dionysos, "  ' '  Eleusis ' ' — orien- 
tal, 33  ss.,  96,  116  ss.,  138,  160— 
m.  and  philosophy,  38,  124  ss. — 
transformed,  38  s.,  82 — children 
initiated,  138 

Mysticism,  astral,  30,  126,  208  ss. 
— Neo -Platonic,  42,  125 

Naiads,  139 

Necromancy,  53,  62,  66,  68,  190 


Nectabis,  136 

NeTcyia,  82 

Nemesis,   130 

Neo-Platonists,  40,  87  s.,  106,  110, 
124,  144,  163,  169,  196 

Neo -Pythagoreans,  see  "Pythago- 
reans ' ' 

Nereids,  139 

Nero,  103,  131 

Nether  world,  70  ss. — imitation  of 
city,  75,  172  s. — lower  hemis- 
phere, 79 — in  the  air,  81 ;  cf. 
1 '  Atmosphere  "  —  scepticism 
about  n.w.,  18,  83  s. — faith  in 
n.w.  preserved,  36  s. ;  cf. 
"Hades,"  "Inferi" 

New  York  (Museum),  155,  n.  23 

Nigidius  Figulus,  22,  32,  97 

Non  nutriti,  137 

Nosai'ris,  178 

Nous,  103,  168,  213 

Numa,  21 

Number  (Pythagorean),  132 

Numenius,  107 

Nymphs,  140 

Octavius,  51 

Oenoanda,  9 

Oil,  119 

Olympus,  80,  88,   104  s.,   157,  163, 

195— Olympic  earth,  97;  cf.  187 
Omophagy,  120 
Orcus,  83;  cf.  "Hades" 
Oriental      mysteries,      33  ss. ;      cf. 

1 '  Mysteries ' ' — Or.  religions,  117, 

203,  209 
Origen,  108  s.,  140,  154,  188 
Orphism,  5,  21,  34  s.,  73  s.,  77,  138, 

148  s.,  171  s.,  174,  177  ss.,  187  s., 

193,  201 
Oscilla,  143 
Osiris,  35,  113,  116,  122  s.,  202  s.; 

cf.  l '  Serapis ' ' 
Os    resectum,    65 — ossa    quiescantf 

191 
Ovid,  22,  73,  104 


INDEX 


221 


Pains  of  hell,  170  ss.;  cf.  "Fire," 
1  <  Eternal ' ' 

Paintings,  93;  cf.  catacombs,  202, 
206 

Palingenesis,  13,  182  ss. 

Panaetius,  13,  27  s. 

Panamu    (king),  205 

Pannonia,  186 

Papyri,  157;  cf.  " Magic' ' 

Paradise,  200,  205 

Parcae,  84 

Parentalia,  63,  71 

Pascal,  2,  30 

Pausanias,  95 

Pegasus,  156 

Pericles,  1 

Periktione,   78 

Peripatetic  school,  6,  77;  cf. 
"  Aristotle" 

Persia,  54,  89,  95  s.,  107,  156,  175, 
177;  cf.  ' ' Mazdeans, ' '  "Mith- 
ras" 

Pessimism,  24,  39,  41 

Petelia  tablet,  148 

Peter,  apocalypse  of,  173 

Petosiris,  132 

Petronius,  49,  135 

Phantoms,  see  "Ghosts" 

Pharaohs,  113,  123;  cf.  "Egypt" 

Philadelphia,  151 

Philip  of  Opus,  208 

Philo  the  Jew,  31,  140,  154 

Philosophy,  5  ss. — and  mysteries, 
38,  121 — philosophers  immortal, 
114,  124 — priests  of  the  world, 
125 — wonderworkers,  114;  cf. 
1 '  Epicureans, "  "Neo-  Plato  - 
nists,"  "Pythagoreans,"  "Sto- 
ics" 

Phoebus,   157;   cf.  "Sun" 

Phosphorus,   159 

Phrygian  cult,  35  s. ;  cf.  "  Saba- 
zios" 

Pindar,  73 

Pirithous,  171 

Planets,  28,  168,  179,  209— planet- 


ary   spheres,    103,    106  ss.,    154, 

187 
Plato,  6,  7,  18,  23,  26,  28,  32,  39, 

42,    66,    77,    87  ss.,   95,    99,    107, 

129,   136,   158,   169,  178,   182  ss., 

188— Plato's    cavern,    23,    99— 

Phaedo,  49,   79,   144,   152,   163; 

cf.     '  <  Axiochos, "     "  Neo-Plato- 

nists ' ' 
Plautus,  5 
Pliny  the  Elder,  8,  83,  92,  96— the 

Younger,  67 
Plotinus,   23,   40  ss.,   61,   125,   144, 

212  s. 
Plutarch,  39,  83,  87,  129,  173,  186 
Pluto,  75,  84s.;  cf.  "Hades" 
Pneuma,  see   ' 'HveOfia" 
Polybius,  5 
Pontiffs,  65;  cf.  44 
Porch,  see  "Stoics" 
Porphyry,  40,  42,  87,  120,  125,  144, 

184 
Posidonius   of  Apamea,  27  ss.,  32, 

39,  43,  82,  98,  124,  136,  161,  184 
Praesens  numen,  112 
Praetextatus    (catacombs),  202 
Prayer    (silent),  24,   122,  126 
Priests     immortal,     114 — anointed, 

119;  cf.  "Philosophers" 
Proclus,  87  s.,   169 
Prodicus,  150 
Propertius,   47 
Proserpina,  25,  75,  95,  97 
Psyche,  25,  59 

Psychopomp,    94,    163;    cf.    "Her- 
mes," "Sun" 
Ptolemies,  123;  cf.  "Alexandria" 
Ptolemy's    system,    28,    43,    109— 

astrology,  132 — epigram,  211 
Punic     cults,     93;      cf.     59;      cf. 

"Africa" 
Purgatory,  26,  82,  161  s.,  185  ss. 
Purification   of  the   soul,   118;    cf. 

"Purgatory,"  "Lustrations" 
Pyre,  49,  159 


222 


INDEX 


Pyriphlegethon,  15,  76,  78,  81,  175, 
185 

Pythagoras,  20  ss.,  97 

Pythagoreans,  20  ss.,  27,  32,  35, 
38  ss.,  59,  66,  68,  74,  77  s.,  81, 
95  s.,  99  s.,  104,  107,  121,  124, 
129,  132  ss.,  136  s.,  144,  149  ss., 
160,  167,  171,  177  ss.,  181,  188, 
194. 

Quies  aeterna,  191 
Quietae  sedes,  195 

Ea,  94,  113,  154 

Eays  of  the  sun,  160 ;  cf.  ' '  Sun ' ' 

Reason  rises  to  the  sun,  103,  168; 
cf.  "Nous" 

Befrigerium,  202 

Eeinearnation,  26,  29;  cf.  "Me- 
tempsychosis ' ' 

Eepast,   see   ' '  Banquet ' ' 

Eepose  of  the  dead,  190  ss. — in  the 
Elysian  Fields,  193  s. — in  heaven, 
195  ss. 

Eest,  see  ' '  Eepose, ' '  ' '  Quies ' ' 

Eesurrection  of  the  flesh,  197 

Eetaliation,  173 

Eetribution,  72,  172  ss.,  177  ss.; 
cf.  "Judgment" 

Eevelation,  207;   cf.  "Gnosis" 

Ehadamanthus,  75 

Ehine,  154 

Eight  and  left,  152 

Eites  not  needed,  125  ss. 

Eoads  (two),  150  ss.;  cf.  "Milky 
Way" 

Bosalia,  53;  cf.  57 

Eoyal  souls,  114;  cf.  "Kings" 

Sabazios,  35,  202,  204 

Sacrifices  for  the  dead,  50  ss. 

Sage,  god  on  earth,  14,  111  ss. 

Sallust,  8 

Salvation  in  mysteries,  34  ss. 

Samos,  1 

Sanctus,  111 


San  Francisco   (museum),  183 

Sarcophagi,  74,  85,  115,  149,  155; 
cf.  "Sculpture" 

Saturn,  107,  131,  141,  187 

Satyrs,  138 

Scarbantia,  186 

Scepticism,  17  ss.,  28,  31 

Science  deifies,  208  ss. ;  cf.  "  Gno- 
sis" 

Scipio's  tomb,  47 — Scipio's  dream, 
32,  104 

Sculpture  (funeral),  85,  86,  117, 
149,  151,  155  ss.,  159,  165,  185  s., 
194,  201,  205;  cf.  "Paintings," 
' '  Sarcophagi ' ' 

Sea  (death  at),  129 

Seals,   163 

Securi  (dead),  55,  191 — secura 
quies,  194 

Selene,  96s.;  cf.  "Moon" 

Semites,  48,  79,  93  s.,  103,  123; 
cf.  l '  Syrians ' ' 

Sendjerli,  204 

Seneca,  8,  14,  22,  31,  83,  152,  179, 
196 

Serapis,  36  s.,  39,  122  s.,  202;  cf. 
1 1  Osiris ' ' 

Servius,  60,  passim 

Sextus  Empiricus,  161 

Shade,  165  ss. — and  soul,  79 — 
shades  receive  or  reject  dead,  68, 
86,  n.  39,  134,  193,  204;  of. 
"E?5wW,"  "Umbra" 

Shahid,  142 

Sheol,  4 

Ship,  see  "Boat" 

Sideribus  recepti,  113 

Sight  of  god,  121,  207;  c/.  "Gno- 
sis" 

Silicernium,  53 

Simulacrum,  166  s.;   cf.  "EtScSKov" 

Sisiphus,  78,  84,  170,  181 

Sit  tibi  terra  levis,  46 

Sleep  of  death,  10,  45,  49,  192 

Smyrna,  140 

Socrates,  131 


INDEX 


223 


Solar  attraction,  160;  cf.  "Rays," 

"Sun" 
Soldiers  slain  in  battle,  142 
Somno  aeterno,  192 
Soul  a  breath,  4,  7,  59,  164— burn- 
ing breath,  13  s.,  24,  29,  87,  98, 
161 — number,  24 — circular,  98 — 
a  bird,  59,  93,  157  s. — not  im- 
material, 118,  162 — physical  na- 
ture, 164  ss. — principle  of  move- 
ment, 110 — soul  and  shade,  79; 
cf.  "E««Xov"  —  pollution,  29,  118, 
162,  185— division,  168— related 
to  God,  12,  111 — union  with 
God,  42,  122  s. — becomes  star, 
92  s.  —  journey,  148  ss.  —  triple 
ascension,  106 — passage  through 
planets,  107 — garments  of  s., 
106  ss.; — hierarchy  of  souls, 
108  s.,  213 — how  represented, 
165,  167;  cf.  '/Ghost,'  » 
"Shade,"  "Spirit,"  "Stars" 
Spirit  of  Evil,  89,  175;  cf.  "Ahri- 

man" 
Spirits  of  the  dead,  46  s.,  56  s. — 

of  murdered,  130;   cf.  "Soul" 
Stars  and  souls,  92  s.,  94,  103  ss. — 
shooting  s.,  92 — invicti,  117;  cf. 
"Comet" 
Statius,  103 
Stele,  see  ' '  Sculpture ' ' 
Stoics,  12  ss.,  21,  30  s.,  33,  39,  46, 
65,  77,  82,  87,  96,  98  s.,  103,  113, 
144,  179,  182,   195 
Styx,  25,  75  s.,  78,  80  s.,  83  s.,  134, 

155,    193 
Sublunary  world,  see  "World" 
Suetonius,  86,  130 
Suicide,  143  ss. 

Sun-god, 24, 86,  130;  cf.  "Helios," 
' '  Phoebus, "  "  Ra ' ' — and  em- 
perors, 157 — and  eagle,  158 — 
psychopomp,  164 — star,  28,  100 
S- — new  sun,  91 — heart  of  the 
world,  100 — reason  of  the  world, 


101,     107 — sun     and    souls,    94, 
156  ss;  cf.  "Boat,"  "Chariot" 
Suo  die,  133 

Syncretism,  see  "Eclecticism" 
Syria,  28,  40,  52,  73,  86,  92,  112, 
131,  156  ss.,  176,  n.  11,  204  ss.— 
Syrian  cults,  37,  93,  96,  120  s. 

Taciti   (Manes),  165 

Tacitus,   18 

Tages,  149 

Tantalus,  9,  78,  84  s.,  170,  181 

Tartarus,  26,  27,  34,  75  s.,  77,  79  s., 
84  s.,  171  ss.,  175  s.,  188;  cf. 
"Hades" 

Taurobolium,  119 

Tertullian,  55 

Theodore  the  Atheist,  65 

Theophanes,  146 

Theseus,  171 

Tiberius,  86 

Tibullus,  191 

Timaeus  of  Locri,  78 

Tiresias,  74 

Titans,  178 

Titus,  142 

Tityus,  9,  170,  181 

Tivoli,  183 

Tomb,  a  dwelling,  3,  46  ss.,  56 — 
furniture,  49  s.,  72— garden,  57, 
200 — placed  on  roads,  58 — ante- 
chamber of  nether  world,  70 — 
tombstone,  see  ' '  Sculpture, ' ' 
1 '  Sarcophagi ' ' 

Torre  San  Severo  (sarcophagus), 
74 

Trajan,  157 

Transmigration,  see  "Metempsy- 
chosis ' ' 

Tritons,  186 

Ulysses,  74,  180 

Vmhra,  79,  166  s. 

Unburied,  64;   cf.  "Inscpulti" 

Unctions,  119,  163 

Untimely  death,  128  ss.,  136  ss. 


224 


INDEX 


Varro,  31 

Vatinius,  22 

Vegetarianism,  179 

Vehicle  of  souls,  61,  169 

Venus — star,      94,      107 — goddess, 

104,  123,  187 
Violation  of  tombs,  67  s. 
Virgil,  31,  59,  66,  73,  82  s.,  128  s., 

139,  142,  152,  172,  174,  182,  184, 

186,  210 

Warriors,  see  ' '  Soldiers ' ' 
Washing,  see  ' '  Ablutions ' ' 
Water,  heavenly,   185 — libation   of 
w.,  51;   cf.  202 — purification  by 


w.,  see  ' '  Elements, "  "  Lustra- 
tion '  > 

Winds,  25,  60,  155,  161,  166,  185 

Wine,  35,  52,  120,  203  ss.,  211 

Wizards,  see  "Magic" 

World— system  of,  28,  99  s.,  121 
—divine,  12,  29  s.,  126— sublu- 
nary world,  99,  107,  117,  168, 
195;  cf.  "Moon" 

Y  symbol,  26,  150  s.,  194 
Yezidis,  178 

Zagreus,  138 

Zeno,  195 

Zeus,  112,  123;  cf.  "Jupiter" 


GREEK  WORDS 


"Ayafioi,  137 

'Aycdfa,  123 

'Ayvela,  24 

''AyvuxrTos  0e6s,  41 

'AeiS^s,  (=  Hades),  79 

Atria  £\o/a{pu},  183 

'A»/a7w7eiJs,  101,  160 

'Avouptr-ns,  131 

'Aj'a/rios  6  0e6s,  183 

yAp€fio$,  59 

'Avdo<t>6pos,  138 

'Avrldeos,  89 

'Av&wftoij  137 

'AiratfaMtTJfw,  116,  118 

'ATrd^ta,  191 

'Airo06wr«,  118;  c/.  "Apotheosis" 

''A7TO/30t  T?7S  TCMpTJS,    68 

'Aper^,  151 

''Apxorres,  162 

'AcajTe/a,  151 

1 Arapa^ia,   8 

''Atck/xu,  64;  c/.  "Iwepulti" 

"AtPo<Pol,  132,  137 

"Awpot,  129,  136  s. 

Biato^dj/arot,  129,  141  ss. 
Bids  6eu}pr]Tu<6s,  211 

IVSc-is    (roC   0eoO),   23,   121  ss.,   125, 
207  ss. 

Ao|<£feti»,  123 

ErSwXoj/,  7,  24,  79,  166  s. 
'JZnTrvpcocris,  13  S. 
'Eri^ai^s  0e6s,  112 
'ETTTdKTts  0e6s,  160 
Eu7r\o?,  155 
Etytfx«>  149 


'H7e/uovt/c6»',  30,  103 
"Ryep.d}v  debs,  163  S. 

9e£flo«,  149 

Kard/focris  ers"At5ou,  171;  cf.  "Hades' 
KikXos  7e^<rews,  179 

MeTej/<ra>/udTw<ris,  182 

Nous,  168;  cf.  103,  213 
Nvp.<p6\r)iTToi,  139 

Sw^ara,  160 

'056s  p.aKdpu)v,  152 
"Oxww,  41,  161,  169 

IIaXi77ej/eo-fa,  182 
Uapd8€i<ros,  200 
n»/eO/*a,  111,  168 
Uo\vdv8piov,  145 

S«<£,  166  s. 
2vyy4veia,  96,  111 
'Zvinrocnapx'')*,  202 
Sw/xa,  167 

SWT77P,    112 

TeXdwa,  163 
TpfoSos,  151 

T,  26,  150  8.,  194 

"Xi/ao-Tos,  41;  c/.  "Hypsistos" 

"Tfovffdcu,  123 

*wWfw,  123 

^uxt7,  25,  59,  167;  cf.  "Psyche" 


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DATE  DUE 


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